I Know Your Name

Like Gilligan's Island

2011-08-28T16:27:00.000-07:00

No phones, no lights, no motor-cars

not a single luxury

like Robinson Crusoe

it's primitive as can be

I know, I know. Who watches Gilligan's Island anymore?

Well, I do sometimes.

The gift of my father's television taste, now fortunately freed from the tyranny of commercials by boxed seasons.

I also sometimes watch Hogan's Heroes and I Dream of Jeannie, but that's beside the point.

Gilligan's Island was a comedic sitcom about a tour boat crew and its passengers who got stranded on a tropical island and had to (a) survive with whatever they'd brought along and the natural resources of the island, and (b) forge a small, functioning community out of an odd assortment of people. Admittedly, Gilligan's Island is not a perfect simile to my life at the moment: I certainly have no professor available who can figure out how to make a bomb out of a couple of coconuts to diffuse an imminently erupting volcano, and obviously if I am writing this post I am not lacking electricity or technological options to connect to the outside world. I did leave my car at home, though. And, of more relevance, I am trying to find harmony in the midst of living with an odd conglomeration of personalities, isolated from my normal community, with minimal access to my usual "drugs".

Normally when I'm stressed, I either self-medicate with chocolate (which a good health teacher from Jr. High taught me is filled with chemicals that initiate calm emotional responses) or I do my best to escape by distracting myself with fictional stories that have happy endings. Sometimes I will also listen to loud music in my car that I can sing along with to soothe my soul. However, a couple weeks ago our church Young Adult group challenged all its members to try a fast. Too much of a coward to do a full food fast for a day or two, I opted for a much longer but much less stringent fast from chocolate and fictional book reading. Since Dan opted to fast from coffee, I decided I might as well cut that out, too. We arbitrarily chose a traditional time length for our fast, and away we went.

It just hasn't been as easy as I thought. Oh, I've resisted temptation to the listed items alright. Rather, the challenge has been to allow God to fill those empty spaces, rather than just filling them with other things (ex. lemon squares in lieu of chocolate, and movies in lieu of books). Particularly, now that I've been travelling for nearly two weeks and my alternative drugs aren't easily accessible either (Dan, my little lemon square of sunshine, is still at home), I'm finally starting to feel the strain of the fast I chose. I am really struggling to put into practice the idea of "resting in God," and in God alone. Practically speaking, what does that look like?

I have some guesses. Rest is what you get when you're not anxious about something, regardless of whether or not your body is in motion. The banes of anxiety and helplessness seem to be competence, power, and trust. You don't need to worry about x if you believe that someone has the power, ability, and desire to handle x with care. My former room-mate, Jasmine, seemed to have a pretty good grasp of the concept of resting in God. God always seemed so obvious to her, and she followed Him like a child, curious and content. She'd chat with him about life, and he'd tell her to do things like, "Go for coffee at the Starbucks on 14th now," and she would obey and then find an old friend she hadn't seen in years. (Her summary of said 'coincidence' was: "Yeeees! I'm getting so good at this game, God!"). Graham Cooke also described his relationship with God as one of trust, and a game of giving. Bitterness and hopelessness are not synonymous with rest. These emotional/psychological states appear to carry an underlying belief that others will not take care of x (due to incompetence, unwillingness, or impotence), so I must do x myself, and it's too hard. I've been reading through Job again. I love Job like I love reading treatises on mathematical formulas, or like I like eating broken glass, or listening to screaming babies, or eating my birthday dinner at McDonald's, or having my fingernails pulled out with pliers, or riding a bicycle in a snowstorm, or building a summer home in the middle of a Florida swamp, or going down-hill skiing in Saskatchewan, or keeping a pile of live snakes and tarantulas on the floor in lieu of carpet, or eating household pets for supper, or putting moldy potatoes in my fruit smoothie for breakfast, or rolling naked in piles of festering garbage, or watching reality tv shows on tv, or stubbing my toe on the heat register, or accidentally stabbing myself in the finger with my syringe, or presenting sex ed to a class of grade 7 students, or... I mean, honestly, has anyone ever tried to count how many similes, proverbs, and metaphors are used by each character in that story to make a point that could have been stated in under 10 seconds? Of course not- they would shoot themselves first. Wait, what was I talking about? Oh, right; I think Job is a counterfoil to Jasmine, or he would be if they were in the same story. Job's sin was pride and self-righteousness. He was so sure of his own perfection that he was willing to accuse God of being unjust when the blessings of his life were removed. Everyone gets so angry on his account: how could God allow such a righteous man to suffer so much and then respond to his anguish with a "Shut up and stop questioning me- I'm God, you fool!"? But how do we know Job was actually righteous, except from his own account? (ex. "Everything I did was honest. Righteousness covered me like a robe, and I wore justice like a turban" Job 29:14). How accurate was Job's account? How do you know when someone is righteous? God never argued that Job hadn't done good things with his wealth and influence while he held them. Rather, it seems that God saw something ugly coming that Job, and all Job's friends, family, and acquaintances had not seen; a temptation hidden in Job's heart Job had never recognized because Job had never been in the sort of uncomfortable place where such a thing could be revealed. He had too much chocolate and fictional reading and lemon squares and movies to watch to see that tiny little crack in his soul Satan was panting at, ready to rip in and tear it wide open for disease and death. So after all Job's angry ranting, Elihu, the young one, speaks on God's behalf: "But by means of their suffering, [God] rescues those who suffer. For he gets their attention through adversity. God is leading you away from danger, Job, to a place free from distress. He is setting your table with the best food. But you are obsessed with whether the godless will be judged. Don't worry, judgement and justice will be upheld. But watch out or you may be seduced by wealth. Don't let yourself be bribed into sin. Could all your wealth or all your mighty efforts keep you from distress? Do not long for the cover of night, for that is when people will be destroyed. Be on guard! Turn back from evil, for God has sent this suffering to keep you from a life of evil" (Job 36:15-21). A very little bit of discomfort is already showing me that I lean a lot more on my "easy-going" and "tempered" nature to deal with conflict around me than I do on God, and when my little stress relievers of chocolate and happy distraction and people who are always nice back to me aren't available, I'm not quite as easy-going and tempered as I like to believe. I have some of the appearance of a Jasmine, but underneath is mostly the pride-cracked heart of Job with a secret doubt that God will not take care of everything the way that it should be. So come Holy Spirit, and transform me. You must increase, and I must decrease (wince). Or, since I'm looking at Job, in Job's words: "I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes, I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance" (Job 42:5-6).

Country-song Ode to Daniel

2011-08-28T15:46:00.000-07:00

August 28. Day 8 of my trip in Saskatchewan.

Happy Anniversary Daniel,

I miss you a lot.

I miss your enthusiasm for growing things, nurturing plants like your children;

I miss your garlicy culinary creations, thoughtfully packed up for us on Thursday nights;

I miss your endless curiosity about how things work,

your pride in finding one perfect word to sum up a complex situation,

your soothing hugs as you laugh at me for raging about something,

the vexed sound you make when you're feeling trapped,

the texture of your downy-soft hair after it's been washed,

your deep voice rumbling the word, "Hmmm,"

your tight and ticklish abs and buns,

your tiny little drawings or diagrams,

the way you would croone the words, "Tiny little," and twiddle your fingers to demonstrate,

muscled arms that remind me of Popeye the Sailor on spinach,

your wrinkly forehead that makes me giggle when it folds up like a soft-top on a sports car.

I miss being around you:

I miss going for walks with you and swinging our held hands together, and occasionally pushing you into a nearby bush or snowdrift;

I miss listening to loud music in the car with you (actually, I kind of miss music, period);

having stupid fights as we cook delicious recipes together in the sunny kitchen,

snuggling in bed for 2 minutes before I get too hot and have to shove you away so I don't explode,

intentionally going limp and falling over so you have to catch me,

punching you when you make awful puns,

and going to the grocery store together to hunt for exotic cheeses to taste with crunchy crackers before going to bed.

I love you a lot Daniel.

1 more week to go.

Katutura [R]evolution

2011-06-22T00:21:00.000-07:00

Katutura is a low-income district in the Namibian city of Windhoek (see "The Katutura Township of Windhoek"). The name literally means, "The place we do not want to settle." Katutura was originally built by the South African Administration around the time of World War I as a sort of crappy rental district where all black residents of the town of Windhoek were forced to move to so Windhoek could be exclusively composed of white German residents. Lighter "coloured" individuals were allowed to live in between. Not surprisingly, the non-white residents of Windhoek didn't want to leave their nicer homes in the Old Location to live in a segregated ghetto where they would be forced to pay rent for 1-room cement houses without running water or electricity, so they termed the new living area Katutura and posed a mass demonstration that ended rather bloodily and badly for them. In 1990, by the turning of God, Namibia gained independence from the South African Administration. Consequently, a lot of effort was put into improving the Katutura area infrastructure, and residents were allowed to either buy their homes at low cost or were simply given their homes. By 2006, Katutura had become a popular point of arrival for rural migrant workers seeking a new urban life of opportunity, with approximately 600 new people arriving every month to an area with a population of 150 000. Katutura was hard pressed to provide even basic housing and sanitation for the newcomers. The Old Location remains the most desirable real-estate of Windhoek, with infrastructure and property value decreasing the further away from it and closer to the outer edge of the Katutura district a person goes. Nevertheless, today, provisioned with more freedom and ownership for the area that now makes up 2/3 of Windhoek, some of the locals have begun calling Katutura Matutura, which means, "The place where we want to stay." I heard a Christian College professor give a sermon on Katutura earlier this year. He stated that Katutura means, "The place where we will never settle," and emphasized the people's desire to move out of Katutura towards the interior of the city once they had found appropriate employment to support them. From this, he admonished Christians to be like that in our faith- never content to just sit where we are, but to push forward, deeper; "Further up and further in!" if you prefer C. S. Lewis' wording (The Last Battle, p. 213). I think that was a worthy lesson. And yet. And yet, the people have renamed Katutura. There is a beauty to be noted from the changed name of the place by the residents themselves, manifesting a change of attitude toward their home borne of the transformation and redemption of their community. So where am I? Am I an ambitious migrant worker in Katutura, or a proud citizen in Matutura? The two places co-exist in Namibia, and perhaps I live in both worlds simultaneously also. I take pride in my work, and I generally feel satisfied in my roles of family connector, friend support, and young adult church leadership. In that sense, I am dwelling in Matutura. And yet. And yet, I feel time as the steady pull of a river moving past me, to unseen places I wish to go. But I don't have a boat to get there, and there's so much to do where I am that somehow I always run out of daylight before the opportunity comes to build my boat. The And Yet tells me I am biding my time in Katutura. What do you say, God? I say that right now you're training, and you need to be patient, but you also need to plan for the future. Keep fishing in the river where you are- you need to eat; yet, spend a little time each week working on your boat. You can't swim to where you're going. Or teleport. Teleporting is out.

Lament for Darcy

2011-06-06T10:46:00.000-07:00

Dear Darcy, It's hard to believe you won't be there to greet me at the farm when I come to visit this go around. Mind, I probably wouldn't be visiting my Eastern kin so soon if it weren't for you. I expected to return for a funeral. I didn't expect it to be yours. I was never close to you, Darcy. You were 8 years older than me, and that always appears a big difference when you're a child. Moreover, you were a farm boy, and I was a city girl, and you got to see our grandparents every day, while I met them as if for the first time again every 4 years or so. You always seemed 5 steps ahead of me, but I really liked you. On one of the earliest visits we had that I can remember, you were friends with Nolan. The two of you made a giant pile of hay below the hay shoot in the dairy barn, then bravely jumped through the shoot 2 stories down to the pile of hay. I was a little bit horrified, and perhaps more than a little bit envious. The next time we visited, you were older; a responsible teen. Nolan and I made a pile of hay below the shoot, and you sighed heavily, a sigh of long-suffering, then called to our uncle Ted that, "The kids made a mess in the barn". Our mother taught us to make forts with the bales of hay instead. When we returned next, you had gotten older again; a good-natured youth. Nolan was old enough to work with the men, so it was just me, Melanie, and Chasey making forts in the barn. Chasey fell 4 layers down through a tunnel in the deeply stacked hay and landed on the rickety hatch to the hay shoot. It didn't look like it could support his meager weight very long. We couldn't reach him, and Chasey started crying, "Oh no, oh no, oh no!" You came to the rescue. With one of your long, lanky youth arms you reached down into the hole, said, "It's ok, buddy," and pulled Chasey out. When we returned for Grandma's funeral, you were a young man, broken-hearted. Rare among your contemporaries, you were deeply attached to your grandparents, even sharing the same home with them when you got married and started your own family. Even in your grief, you were genuinely hospitable. I will never forget Chasey's description of your introduction for your first son. Shy, he was nowhere to be found when we arrived. You wandered around the house, cheerfully calling, "Jackson? Jackson?" Until at last you opened a closet and found him cowering in a corner. Not missing a beat, you happily declared, "There you are Jackson!", and hauled the poor child from his hiding place to meet Nolan and Chasey. So proud of your young son. Most recently when we visited, it was for Grandpa's 90th birthday. Now an established adult, you proudly introduced us to Jackson's younger brother, Charlie- named for his great grandfather- showed us the beautiful renovations you had completed on the old farmhouse to make it new, and warmly offered us a place to stay in the house we had always used as home base when visiting, though our grandparents no longer lived there. You found honour in carrying on the family tradition of dairy farming on the original Perrinridge farm, where we had the party to celebrate the grandfather you still loved so deeply. It's hard to believe you won't be there to greet me at the farm when I come to visit this go around. Mind, I probably wouldn't be visiting my Eastern kin so soon if it weren't for you. I expected to return for a funeral. I didn't expect it to be yours. Your family was your whole world, and when it broke down you felt there was nothing left. I heard that you and Kristy were fighting, and that it was after she had left you experienced a mental break-down, and your final overwhelming despair. It's a hard image to envision alongside the snap-shots of you I remember. It hurts to picture you feeling so alone and hurt that you believed there was only one choice left to you. You made a decision you couldn't take back, and no one can change it for you. Wherever you are now, I know you are regretting that decision. Regretting never being able to play hide-and-seek with your sons again, Regretting not waiting to experience reconciliation with your beautiful wife, Regretting leaving your father to work alone on a dairy farm that will haunt him for the rest of his life, Regretting not seeking comfort from the One who made you, loves you, and died for you. I'm going to miss you, Darcy. "I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." John 10:9-10. Lord have mercy, Amen.

Grief Gears Turning, Present Images

2011-03-09T16:34:00.000-08:00

(A) C.S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair: a long series of botched instructions that lead to a long series of much more difficult tasks and guilt. I had such great intentions of reading a lectio in the morning every day while I was on holiday, to properly focus myself on the actual meaning of Christmas. That is, the celebration of Christ’s arrival on earth and remembrance of all that his visit to Earth as one of us accomplished. On the few lectios I did, I discovered that my attention span for meditation has become significantly diminished. And, with no surprise, my lack of attention to my first priority wreaked havoc with my smaller Christmas goals. I missed my marks repeatedly: I forgot to include my amphibious bible in the Christmas back-pack I dropped off at the Mustard Seed, held too long onto West Jet buddy passes and thus let them go to waste, and neglected to complete my wedding gift thank-you notes and consequently had to suffer the pointed disappointment of one of Daniel’s aunts (the one who gave us the West Jet passes we wasted). Sigh. (B) I did succeed in my goal of going to the local pool for an assortment of low-impact fitness programs nearly every day I’ve been off work. My body feels much better. Moreover, the combination of yoga, deep-water workouts, and aquasize brought out some pseudo-spiritual experiences for me. I discovered that my grief has at last transformed from a snarly, unreasonable dog to the ocean. On our honeymoon, Dan and I stayed at a tropical resort along the Brazilian coast. When the tide was in, large, relatively warm waves would hit the sand and whoosh with inconsistent sucking power up onto the steeply sloped beach. We spent hours of blissful joy jumping in those waves, and getting sucked out into the ocean when we failed to keep our feet in place. It was intensely fun, and felt like we were playing with God himself…that is, that is how it felt until I started having a low blood sugar, at which point it would just seem scary, and annoy me by making my escape difficult. This is how memories of my mother come to me: in character, they are cheerful, fun, and loving, and that is usually how they make me feel; but every now and again they hit me hard like an unexpectedly large wave, leaving my eyes and throat burning, and myself nearly bruised. But it’s just a moment, and I’ll live.

Grief Gears Turning, Fifth Image

2011-03-09T16:33:00.000-08:00

My green Car of Grace spinning out on the highway on the top of the Crowchild Trail overpass that crosses over Bow Trail. Miraculously, the lovely sportscar I side-swiped in my impatience only has a dent on its front fender, no one is injured, and I didn’t go over the guard rail or get hit by any of the on-coming traffic that my car is now facing. And the nice police officer who arrived at the scene only gave me a ticket for making an unsafe lane change, when he could have also ticketed me for not having my license on me. However, my brilliant plans of getting out of debt with gazelle-like intensity are way-laid: I’m way too shaky to go to work for a relief shift, so I’ll make no extra money this pay cheque; my car has some ugly new dents in it to broadcast my shame as an unsafe driver; and soon my insurance company will no doubt find it expedient to increase my monthly car insurance payments. Well, there it is: The Sign of Aravis from C. S. Lewis’ A Horse and His Boy. I got a good lashing for my wrong-doing, but at least now I know God still cares and is engaging with whatever I’m doing.

Grief Gears Turning, Fourth Images

2011-03-09T16:31:00.001-08:00

(A) A very small, solitary wolf crying alone in a very big wilderness beneath a very white, large, cold moon. I try to worship and find the words stuck in my throat. I start to pray about situations outside of my control, things that I used to just talk to God about habitually. I get ½ way through and then stop when I remember that we’re not talking because I don’t have confidence You’ll do anything. It’s lonely not talking anymore. (B) Mae’s Brink of Disaster song sings me a forewarning: “I'm on the brink of disaster Staring down the consequences To brake hard would be better Tonight I'll do what it takes to fail Going there only faster Jump the gun and throw it into gear But the fact of the matter’s: I'm out of control, asleep at the wheel Asleep at the wheel I'm out of control, asleep at the wheel.” I ignore the caution, bite my thumb at God, and continue crying while driving and fish-tail frequently.

Grief Gears Turning, Third Images

2011-03-09T16:29:00.000-08:00

(A) 3…2…1… and the anesthesia wears off. A nearly rabid dog who has just come out of surgery, is in pain, and ready to bite the arm off of anyone who comes near. That dog is me. I listen to angry heavy metal music when I drive, and speed often. Rabbi Harry Kushner wrote a book called When Bad Things Happen to Good People. I have not read that book, and probably should do so before I comment on it; however, today I am going to be lazy and just recite what I remember of Kushner’s summary of his book from a t.v. interview I once watched in a Spiritual Disciplines class taught by Charles Nienkirchen. In that interview, Kushner explained that he wrote his book after his son died prematurely of a very painful and debilitating disease, which caused physical and emotional suffering that seemed entirely out of proportion to any wrong-doing by Kushner’s son or Kushner himself. Kushner noted that after the loss of his son he extensively studied the book of Job. Job is about a righteous man (named Job) who experienced every kind of suffering known to man while being tested by God, but was ultimately restored. Kushner rejected that book. As he put it, “There’s no way to replace loved ones you’ve lost with new ones. God’s gift of a new family to Job did not, and could not, make up for the family God had taken from him.” Kushner’s revelation on the problem of pain was thus that some things God does are inexplicable to the human mind and you just have to choose to forgive God for perceived injustice. I reject that thesis. I can’t believe in a God who is imperfect and makes unholy mistakes that I have to forgive, just as I can’t believe in a God who is so wimpy that he wants to do good but just isn’t powerful enough to do it. I also have way too much solid theological training and too many direct experiences of God’s goodness and power to convince myself that God is evil, unengaged, or non-existent. And so I am stuck in a world where the only true happiness, the only real purpose or meaning to be found is to be a worshiping and obedient creature of my creator, and I don’t particularly want to be such right now. I try to read C. S. Lewis’ Surprised by Joy and The Problem of Pain. I can only read very short pieces before I get too angry, because it says reproachful things to me like, “I have no other good to give you”. I persist because Lewis repeatedly admits that much of what he has to say is simply based on Christian theological teaching and he has as hard a time following his own writing as anyone who is bound to read it. I don’t understand why God would make my sweet, loving mother suffer so much, or take her so early from a world that needs to experience her kind of warm acceptance and love. A Small Voice asks me who I am, that I demand to never know the pain of loss like every other human being ever born on broken Earth. The small voice also condescends to point out the blessings that I received which are not given to all who suffer similar losses: memories of a mother uncomplicated by abuse, anger, or bitterness; a large family that pulled together in their grief; a supportive husband who doesn’t smother me, but gets me to laugh as needed; financial stability and a positive work environment that allows me to take the time I need to myself; the assurance that some day I will get to see my mother again, alive and whole and full of joy. I tell that voice to Fuck Off. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that is a prayer recommended or sanctioned anywhere in the Bible. I instantly regret it. (B) The image of King Saul, surrounded by demons that torment his mind, abandoned by the Spirit of God, comes to mind and leaves me feeling cold.

Grief Gears Turning, Second Images

2011-03-09T16:28:00.000-08:00

(A) A storm trooper magnet that reads, “Regret: Those were the droids you were looking for.” I was in the right place at the right time, but not paying attention to the right things. Acts of care for my mother were never enough to ease her suffering. She couldn’t eat, drink, sleep, stand, walk, sit, or stay awake. I wanted desperately to make her laugh, to distract her from her pain for a moment, but I couldn’t think of anything funny to say. There’s nothing funny about cancer, and I couldn’t focus on anything else. I was at my mom’s bedside for her final breath, and I missed my mom’s last smile at me because I was too busy frantically texting, calling, and finding all my other siblings to come immediately even though it was clear they’d never make it in time. (B) A merciful shot of anesthesia to a deer hit by a truck on the highway: I felt only relief at my mother’s escape from pain, and a tranquil sense of purpose as I supported my family, hosted out-of-town guests who had come for my mother’s funeral, and participated in funeral arrangements. I remember the song I Can Only Imagine (by Mercy Me?) coming on the radio moments after my mother’s passing into the arms of Christ.

Grief Gears Turning, First Images

2011-03-09T16:24:00.000-08:00

(A) The sadist with a curved blade who likes to do some cruel knife twisting on my insides every time I look at my mother’s painful body. I went to visit my mom’s family a week before my wedding. It was bittersweet chocolate to me. On one hand, it was so beautiful and restful to spend time with my mother’s siblings and father, building my own connections with them so that when she passes away I won’t lose contact with them, or by extension, with my mother. There’s so much of her in them, so much rich memory. My mom has been the Switzerland of her siblings, nieces, and nephews; able to provide unbiased, confidential empathy, opinions, and mediation in a way the others could not, limited by their geographical closeness to each other. On the other hand, it filled me with sorrow that I was able to go visit my grandfather for his 90th birthday party when my mom, who so deeply desired to, was unable to. She didn’t think she could handle both the flight to see him and the strain of my wedding, and she chose to be present at my wedding. (B) Two deer bounding across a field beneath a rainbow in the middle of a very cold and windy rainstorm on the worst day of the biking pilgrimage Dan and I went on two summers ago. People who came to visit my mom, help with chores around the house, provide personal care, pray, or send meals, gifts, cards, or e-mails of support: all these acted as the face of God in a dark place for us. Bits of light, hope in the midst of exhaustion and frustration.

A House Out of Order

2010-08-16T20:23:00.000-07:00

A house out of order...sounds like one of those irritating word-picture puzzles that are supposed to represent common figures of speech, which teachers dole out to laconic students when they run out of real class work to do. Who am I kidding? I love those puzzles.

Houses are such interesting things: so many possible configurations, sizes, colours, shapes, materials, contents. Being three dimensional, there are so many possible perspectives you can have of a house, both within and without. Every house is as unique as the individuals who inhabit them, and each house affects and reflects it's master. They are the back-drops for most of our intimate relational drama.

Houses also make great metaphores, if you can decifer them.

What does it mean to have a clean house? What does it mean to have a house out of order? When is it right to condemn and demolish a house, versus restore it? When is a house considered 'cluttered' versus 'cozy'? When is a house described as 'sterile' versus 'organized'? At what point does a house cease being a place of refuge to become a prison? And how would you answer those questions differently if I told you that a person's body is the house of their soul?

I've spent a lot of time in other people's houses over the last few months (and very little in my own), and I always find it fascinating how different people order their homes, and how much the state of their home reflects the lives and personalities of the people who live in them. I stayed with my sister Valerie and her room-mate before Valerie's wedding to her husband, Dwayne. It was a 2 bedroom basement suite. My fiance Daniel, Valerie's blood brother and his girlfriend, and one of the other bridesmaids were also staying there. At 2:00am the night we all arrived, Valerie's basement suite flooded. It was a memorable and intellectually stimulating experience, later observing how the prior relative disorder of the house (caused by a combination of the small space, large number of occupants, the usual havoc created by all the conflicting demands of preparing for a wedding, and my sister's generally laissaize fair attitude towards house-keeping) became exascerbated by the unexpected presence of a bunch of water. Still, once the water was bravely pumped out by the quick-thinking and hard-working Dwayne and Daniel, it only took about a week before things were mostly resorted. Quite fortunately, my sister leads a blessedly simple life and had not accummulated a lot of excess belongings, so there wasn't an overwhelming number of items that needed to be cleaned and re-sorted.

Still more interesting was the experience of going to stay with Val's future in-laws while her home was de-flooded. We were very greatful to be freely welcomed into a safe and dry place to rest, but it was a strange place. The home's structure was solid, elegantly crafted to allow social, open space and maximal natural lighting, and had a very tidy yard and well-maintained exterior. But it was very difficult to notice those things if you were standing inside. If you have ever had the misfortune of seeing David Bowie's Labyrinth, then please try to put aside the traumatizing memory of his many pairs of too-tight pants, and recall the scene in which the heroine wakes up in what appears to be her bedroom. There, a strange pigmy bagwoman keeps handing her more and more of her favourite toys, until she is almost buried. Then our heroine has an epiphany: "This is all just junk!" And she bursts out of her room, only to find herself (and a replica of her room) in the middle of a vast landfill composed of endless piles of unsorted rubbage. That is the inside of this house. Well, close, anyway. There was stuff piled everywhere, sometimes right to the ceiling. Some of it was probably useful and/or beautiful, but you couldn't focus on those items because they were swamped in a pile of other things, all on top of carpets that looked like they had not been vacuumed in a millenia. And that, I know, is really not the worst example of illogical hording there is to be found- not the worst by far. It was a large, light-filled, high-ceilinged house, but I felt more claustraphobic there than I had in Valerie's 2 bedroom basement suite filled with 7 people.

After Val's wedding, I went to stay at my friend Jen's farm. She and her 2 children have moved into an old farmhouse where Jen's new husband (Dean) and his son live. It's a small 3-bedroom house. Jen was pregnant at the time I went to visit her. The kids frequently don't get along. Quite fortunately, my visit coincided with Jen's kids' summer visit to their father and Dean's son's visit to an aunt and uncle, so I experienced none of the overcrowded conditions they are usually tormented with. I did, however, get to experience the adventure of living in a house that is rotting from the base up. Jen is a cleanly lady- the house is, without a doubt, much cleaner and orderly since she has arrived and put her powerful senses of hygiene and functionality to work. But there is no soap to heal a bathroom wall that is infected with black mould, to purify a boiler 1/3 filled with sludge, to make a contaminated well's water non-fungal and non-slimy feeling, or to make a wet dirt basement floor any less muddy. This caused her much stress, and I had no suggestions to alleviate her worries.

I thought about those three houses, and their occupants, as I made the long drive back to my home alone. One disoriented house struggling not to drown when hit by crisis: succeeding, thanks in large part to it's simplicity and the many relational supports around it, co-operatively putting it back together. A second house suffocating from within, it's dysfunctionality often keeping it's occupants separated from each other and from those outside; content to remain so, because that is preferable to the pain of sorting, and the vulnerability of being seen clearly...and yet being seen anyway due to changes outside of itself it cannot control. A third house fighting to survive: a pearl knocked mercilessly around and around inside its smelly oyster mouth cage.

I thought about my mom. And I hated her soul's house for betraying her, for growing diseased and distorted when her heart isn't. My mother's body is my friend's rotting home. I wish my friend the opportunity to bulldoze her current house and to escape to a brand new one. I'm not sure I'm ready to wish that for my mother.

Which brings me to the last House Out of Order: my soul, a home of the Spirit of God. It's kind of messy at present, which should be concerning, given that a disaster is impending and I have already seen what happens when a house out of order gets further swirled around. Well, at least in my own house I know where the cleaning supplies are.

Snakes and Ladders

2010-02-19T12:53:00.000-08:00

When I was in Jr. High, one of our class projects involved creating some sort of game with your group to help other students learn something (I really have no idea what subject this project was for). The paradigm my work group unwittingly taught our class-mates was learned helplessness, where one develops an attitude of apathy and hopelessness out of a belief that one has no control over the outcome of one's situation. Seriously the most un-fun game ever to play. It was a Snakes-and-Ladders type concept where each player has a marker and is racing all the other players to get to the end first, except that we created a giant pastel-pink play-dough mountain for our game board. We must have been a sadistic lot. As I recall, there was a 40% chance on each turn that your marker would be forced to go backwards, sometimes all the way to the beginning. The world is a better place because Parker Brothers never offered anyone in my group a job contract. Or at least it seemed that way until recently.

My life has begun to resemble that vexing pattern of taking 7 spaces forward with the help of a sturdy step ladder, followed by 13 back as I promptly slip on a perniciously-placed reptile. Parental relationship difficulties spawn self-doubts: go back 4 spaces. Walk-and-talk in the park brings about enhanced closeness and understanding: move forward 3 spaces. Dan talks out doubts with counsellor, then quizzes Faye with test questions. She passes: climb nearest ladder. Gain full-time employment with benefits and flexible schedule: extra roll. Faye is pissed off about Dan's game-show because she misinterprets meaning: trip on snake and fall back 5 spaces. Serious parental illness: snake chases you back a further 5 spaces. Submit U of C counselling psychology program application just in time: move ahead 3 spaces. Relationship with Dan gets stuck in a quagmire: lose a turn. Friend dies suddenly: go back 2 spaces. Funeral turns out to be a surprisingly joyful celebration of life, lovingly bringing together old and new supportive relationships: ladder takes you up 7 spaces. Chosen as sister's maid of honour and feel honoured: move ahead 5 spaces. Winter depression hits: move back 3 spaces. See recommended counsellor- resulting schedule re-organization and new inspiration to blog enhances mental health: move ahead 4 spaces. Define the Relationship (DTR) talk- discover root of quagmire and agree to go to counselling: move ahead 4 spaces. Go to friend's wedding and discover humility, forgiveness, and redemption during a late-night-chat: climb ladder 8 spaces. Falling behind on boring but necessary up-grading course: move back 2 spaces. Work in the helping services field reveals that many helping systems are hopelessly inadequate and embroiled in prejudice and red-tape- you have no power to fix them: slide down nearest snake. You aren't able to get the week prior to your sister's wedding day off for holidays: stumble on lizard's tongue and go back 2 spaces. Dan mentions preference to attend U of L- dream of being married anytime soon is crushed as you face a 2 year long-distance relationship: go back 3 spaces. Dan quizzes Faye with a book of pre-marital questions loaned to them by a friend- resulting discussion brings out strong commitment to relationship alliance and tentative plans for summer marriage before a dual enrollment at the U of C: take ladder up 12 rungs. A co-worker informs you that you can buy 2 month extensions for course-work completion at your up-grading school: move ahead 3 spaces. After much internal debate, make another counselling appointment: move forward 2 spaces. Receive U of C enrollment rejection letter: get bitten by a poisonous snake and lose a turn in your delirium. Didn't see that one coming.

So, what to do now? I could work on homework. I could go for a walk out-side where the sun is (mostly) still shining. I could do more laundry. I could call a friend and get them to talk about everything that's going on for them to distract myself. I could journal to God and see if he'll talk back. I could go eat some more food. I could go do errands, then head home to see Melanie and ask her about her trip. I could watch a movie. I could. But what should I do?

Pop Culture is Coming to Get Me

2010-01-19T16:58:00.000-08:00

Pop culture is coming to get me. I finally gave in to reading Stephanie Meyer's popular teen romance lit about a girl and her vampire because I was tired of not having anything smart and heavily opinionated to say whenever one of my co-workers, friends, or c-train acquaintances started gushing about the latest plot twist. When I sheepishly bought book 2 in HMV after finishing book 1 in less than 2 days, the store clerk asked me if it was for me or for a friend. I said it was for my teen sister Sam, rolled my eyes, and joined the store clerk in cheerfully abusing the series' weak points. Yeah, it was soooo for me. Who knew that New Moon and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban would hold some of the answers to my greatest spiritual desert to date?

...I didn't understand why, but the nebulous threat the men presented drew me toward them. It was a senseless impulse, but I hadn't felt any kind of impulse in so long...I followed it.

Something unfamiliar beat through my veins. Adrenaline, I realized, long absent from my system, drumming my pulse faster and fighting against the lack of sensation. It was strange- why the adrenaline when there was no fear? It was almost as if it were an echo of the last time I'd stood like this, on a dark street in Port Angeles with strangers.

I saw no reason for fear. I couldn't imagine anything in the world that there was left to be afraid of, not physically at least. One of the few advantages of losing everything.

I was half-way across the street when Jess caught up to me and grabbed my arm.

"Bella! You can't go in a bar!" she hissed.

"I'm not going in," I said absently, shaking her hand off. "I just want to see something..."

"Are you crazy?" she whispered. "Are you suicidal?"

That question caught my attention, and my eyes focused on her.

"No, I'm not," my voice sounded defensive, but it was true. I wasn't suicidal. Even in the beginning, when death unquestionably would have been a relief, I didn't consider it. I owed too much to Charlie. I felt too responsible for Renee. I had to think of them.

And I'd made a promise not to do anything stupid or reckless. For all those reasons, I was still breathing.

Remembering that promise, I felt a twinge of guilt, but what I was doing right now didn't really count. It wasn't like I was taking a blade to my wrists.

Jess's eyes were round, her mouth hung open. Her question about suicide had been rhetorical, I realized too late.

"Go eat," I encouraged her, waving toward the fast food. I didn't like the way she looked at me. "I'll catch up in a minute."

I turned away from her, back to the men who were watching us with amused, curious eyes.

"Bella, stop this right now!"

My muscles locked into place, froze me where I stood. Because it wasn't Jessica's voice that rebuked me now. It was a furious voice, a beautiful voice- soft like velvet even though it was irate.

It was his voice- I was exceptionally careful not to think his name-

and I was surprised that the sound of it did not knock me to my

knees, did not curl me into the pavement in a torture of loss. But

there was no pain, none at all. In the instant that I heard his voice,

everything was very clear. Like my head had suddenly surfaced

out of some dark pool. I was more aware of everything- sight,

sound, the feel of the cold air blowing sharply against my face,

the smells coming from the open bar door.

I looked around myself in shock.

"Go back to Jessica," the lovely voice ordered, still angry. "You

promised- nothing stupid."

I was alone. Jessica stood a few feet from me, staring at me

with frightened eyes. Against the wall, the strangers watched,

confused, wondering what I was doing, standing there motionless

in the middle of the street.

I shook my head, trying to understand. I knew he wasn't there,

and yet, he felt improbably close, close for the first time since...

since the end. The anger in his voice was concern, the same

anger that was once very familiar- something I hadn't heard in

what felt like a lifetime.

"Keep your promise," the voice was slipping away, as if the

volume was being turned down on a radio.

I began to suspect that I was having some kind of hallucination.

Triggered, no doubt, by the memory- the deja vu, the strange

familiarity of the situation.

I ran through the possibilities quickly in my head.

Option one: I was crazy. That was the layman's term for people

who heard voices in their heads.

Possible.

Option two: My subconscious mind was giving me what it thought

I wanted. This was wish fulfillment- a momentary relief from pain

by embracing the incorrect idea that he cared whether I lived or

died. Projecting what he would have said if A) he were here, and

B) he would be in any way bothered by something bad happening

to me.

Probable.

I could see no option three, so I hoped it was the second option

and this was just my sub-conscious running amuck, rather than

something I would need to be hospitalized for.

My reaction was hardly sane though- I was grateful. The sound

of his voice was something that I'd feared I was losing, and so,

more than anything else, I felt overwhelming gratitude that my

subconscious had held onto that sound better than my conscious

one had.

-Stephanie Meyer's (2006) New Moon, pp. 109-113.

"Concentrating hard on your happy memory?"

"Oh- yeah-" said Harry, quickly forcing his thoughts back to that

first broom ride. "Expecto patrono- no patronum, -sorry- expecto

patronum, expecto patronum-" Something whooshed suddenly

out of the end of his wand; it looked like a wisp of silvery gas.

"Did you see that?" said Harry excitedly. "Something happened!"

"Very good," said Lupin, smiling, "Right then- ready to try it on a

Dementor?"

"Yes," said Harry, gripping his wand very tightly, and moving into

the middle of the deserted classroom. He tried to keep his mind

on flying, but something else kept intruding...any second now, he

might hear his mother again...but he shouldn't think that, or he

would hear her again, and he didn't want to...did he?

-J. K. Rowling's (1999) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,

pp. 176-177.

I wish I could say that I loved God with the kind of passion Bella

had for Edward. One so deep, so entwined in my nature that

when God is distanced I feel like I have a hole ripped in my chest

and I'm compelled to try to hold myself together, even though I

know I'm fine physically. God is a much more worthy object of

obsession than any man, no matter how good-looking and

velvety-voice endowed. Maybe my grief is not so great because

my rift was not as sudden. Mine was a slow disappearance, like

a tiny leak in my car's engine coolant compartment that adds up

to a collective loss over time, catching me by surprise one day

with an unfamiliar lighted symbol on my dash.

Nevertheless, like both Bella and Harry's characters, I understand

the craving to hear the missing Voice, even if it comes packaged

in anger or pain. The anger and pain indicate, at least, that He

still cares about what I do, about what happens to me. Because

even pissed off, it's still the most beautiful Voice in the world.

And it feels like it's been such a long time since I've heard it in

any tone at all.

My Voice yelled at me about a parking fine I had decided to

allow to go unpaid because a co-worker had advised me it

could be done with no lasting repercussions beyond angry

letters from the company I had offended. It started off with, "Pay

the fine." I was so surprised to hear that Voice tell me anything

clear, that I momentarily sat stunned in my car where I was

waiting for the light to turn green so I could start speeding past

all the slow people to get to wherever it was that I wanted to get

to that day. And then, out of habit, and anger, and longing, and

curiosity, I started arguing. "I don't want to. I don't need to. I

don't have money for that- I need to pay for medical bills,

groceries, rent, and donate to starving children in Africa and

Haiti. They don't deserve my money even if I had it- they charge

way more than what those gravel pits of space are worth."

The Voice argued back with things like, "Render unto Ceasar

what is Ceasar's," "Thou shalt not steal," "Let your conscience

be clear," "Only the wicked fear punishment," "You don't know

the future- maybe they can track your accounts," "You're using

the Justification defense mechanism because you know you

should have paid for the parking in the first place before you

ended up with the tickets and all their late fees," and finally,

"Faye, if you were to die in a car crash today because of your

terrible driving, could you really look me in the face and claim

that not paying this ticket was the right, blameless, just thing to

do?" Then I was reminded of a U B David and I'll B Jonathan

diagram that illustrates how sin creates a chasm between

ourselves and God. I ground my teeth, swearing. Because

He had me caught. "Don't do that- you're wrecking your

teeth," the Voice added. Suddenly I knew how to get coverage

for the teeth guard I'd been agonizing over since my dentist

told me it was crucial in November. Weird.

I paid the [swear-word] ticket. It actually took me a few days,

because I discovered I had run out of cheques, so I had to use

a free sample one my bank had sent me for my VISA. I put it in

a nice Christmas card that said something about peace to the

world. I couldn't bring myself to write them any personal words

of graciousness or repentance, and my mother's Voice helpfully

kicked in and reminded me that If you can't say anything nice,

don't say anything at all. Besides, like the deuce there's

anything kind you can say to a collections department that won't

be taken as either sarcasm or a bribe by the workers there. That's

like sending a Thank-you card to Revenue Canada. It's a sure

way to get yourself audited. In any case, I sent my cheque in the

conveniently labelled and pre-postage paid envelope the Parking

Company had sent me along with the last threatening letter. The

envelope had gotten a little stained from laying on the floor of my

rather dirty car for so many weeks, and I confess I felt some

satisfaction imagining them grimacing as they touched it to

retrieve their payment. That was the most passive-aggressive

method I could think of for conveying a barb along with my olive

branch. I felt God frown. I hoped it was the sort of frown parents

make at their children to discourage inappropriate behaviour,

while the parent is secretly laughing. I suppose in the parable

of the Vineyard Owner's two sons, I'm the grouchy son who

initially refuses to go work when told, but eventually gets up to go

do as asked, probably kicking rocks irritably as he walks but

compelled forward by a greater desire to make his good, loving

father happy. I think I should be concerned about how much

pride I feel in that image of myself. Would I delight in a teen who

consistently whines every time I ask her to do something useful?

I doubt it. I would probably yell at her to "Grow up," then pass out

that eternally grating piece of sage wisdom, "Sometimes we have

to do things we don't want to do. That's life." By which we mean,

of course, Grown-up life. Ohhhhhh.

[Swear-word again]. Seriously, God? That's the whole point of

the riding my bike in the miserable rain for 10 days, paying the

parking ticket, taking that stupid last course at Ambrose that I

hated and nearly failed, and going roller-blading with Dan as I

promised? Because I have to be a Grown-up now? No! I

refuse. I'm going to remain a little boy who never does anything

but play games and have fun and never grows up! Where's

Wendy? I need her to tell me and the other lost boys a story about

how I defeated Hook with Tinkerbell's fairy dust so I can go to

sleep and be rested up for my pretend fight with the Natives

tomorrow.

"That's a lie. You're perfectly capable of making a decision. Stop

holding onto lies, Faye!" The Voice of my friend Lisa, interrupting

my tirade about not knowing what to do about counselling with

Jackie Stinton, Christian Registered Psychotherapist. She says it

again, to make sure I'm listening, "Faye, stop holding onto lies!"

Yes! I know this game. When a teacher repeats some thing, it

means it's going to be on the test and you have to know it. Okay,

paying attention. Shit, she said "lies". Plural. What other

delusions am I holding on to?

Scary Closet

2010-01-19T16:52:00.000-08:00

Hey, God. It’s been over a year since I tried meeting you here. Maybe that’s just as well- I no longer have an audience I feel obligated to edit my words for. Though now that I’m here, I don’t know what to say. My thoughts used to feel so complete, tightly controlled, flowing together, cohesive when I wrote. Now all I can get out are broken fragments that don’t even make sense to me. Ironic, when contrasted with all the praise I get at work for my detailed but succinct call documentation. I can see the themes and connections in hundreds of others’ stories and distill them into a maximum three-paragraph-long call card that any reader can understand. So why does it take me ten minutes of staring at the floor, swallowing repeatedly, and conscious self-reminders to breathe to answer a standard question in counseling like, “What relationships do you have right now that can help support you through this?” ? It shouldn’t be that hard- I know the answer. It’s not even a discouraging answer; I am very blessed in my attachment network.

Dan described September with me as being “very busy”. He felt like I was constantly pulling him here, there, and to the next place to meet people, get things done, and do things. He expressed relief that I had slowed down lately. Snort. I told him I’m probably busier now that I was in September; I’ve just stopped dragging him with me to everything. Such a strange contradiction, to be so busy, so kinetic on the outside, yet feel so deathly quiet on the inside. It’s not a stillness in the sense of tranquility, balance, or peace; I just feel frozen. I’m poised with my hand on the door knob of a precariously packed closet that has far too many secret boxes. Conveniently compartmentalized and stuffed away “for later,” each box waits eagerly for the slightest crack in pressure to spring loose in an avalanche that will bury me. It’s the kind of B-grade horror movie you want to throw stale pop-corn at: “Don’t go in there, you fool! It’ll get you!!!” But the door knob has such a magnetic pull to my iron hand; the headlights of that truck are so hypnotically mesmerizing to my dilated eyes. I don’t believe in fate. I do believe in Freudian slips and subconscious desires. Sometimes I also believe in providence.

Creeeeak goes the door knob. FWOOOOP-PLOP-PLOP-PLOP-PLOP-PLOP-THUD goes the precariously packed closet stuff onto my head. Siiiiigh, goes the fool lying on the floor, “Well, now that I’m here…” I peruse the jumbled mass of once-organized items heaped nearest my buried head.

Aha. My unfinished scarf, the loose strings almost as tangled and convoluted as I’d left them back in the summer. Driving home from Lac Ste. Anne with Jen. I have just finished ten grueling days of bike-riding and “free-camping” through the most miserable rain and contrary winds I have ever subjected myself to, a week of emotionally intense interpersonal therapy training in Edmonton, and half a week of spiritually and emotionally confusing tent-city grunge living at the native Catholic pilgrimage site of Lac Ste. Anne. Jen wants to know how I feel about the whole thing. It’s a good thing Jen’s life is more confusing than mine. She takes it rather well when I give her the most honest summary I can come up with: “God, you dragged me through ten days of mud-sodden bike-riding over enormous gravel-roaded hills and “free-camping” through the most miserable rain and contrary winds I have ever experienced, dragged up all my old insecurities about having what it takes for counseling for another week after that, and then gave me half a week of forlorn tent-city wanderings and unanswered hopes in physical healing from diabetes so you can show me that I need to ask for help from other people more often?! I already knew that at home! Screw you, I’m never going on another pilgrimage again!” Some of the loose strings have gotten tangled around something else. I trace the knot with my finger, looking for a way to set the captive object free.

Shiny. The captive is a broken necklace. So many beautiful elements, but the chain links are weak and prone to separating when I pull too hard on the smooth stones that I find so comforting to rub with my thumb. I don’t have the tools or the patience to keep putting it back together. It needs to be made into something new. But that is another daunting task- one I haven’t built enough motivation or creativity to launch, so it too was put aside in the closet. Polished natural stone has always been my preference over the ostentatious glamour of cut gems. There’s more mystery in the depth of natural stone’s weight and swirling patterns of compression, an enigma only ever partially revealed by carving cross-sections. One of the beads is more of an oblong orb. Unwieldy and heavy, I actually don’t like it very much in its present shape. I’m tempted to smash it, to see new, sharper shapes and discover more hidden cross-sections. But I also worry about destroying it in my haste. Light gleams on some of the beads, and I gaze again at each one: so many memories strung together by the common theme of a relationship. Laying on a quilt in the summer, asking God why the hell he would finally reveal a man capable of being my match…when that man is an animist and therefore off limits for me. God told me to go forward anyway- the man’s faith wasn’t exactly what it appeared, and I could invite him “further up and deeper in”. Staring out the window at white winter, watching with horror a vision of myself, Dan, and God dancing together. Dan doesn’t see God; Dan keeps turning his back on God, trying to dance with me alone. I feel so awkward excluding God when God has greater claim on my affections and adventures, but I don’t know how to pull Dan back and make him see the Friendly Giant in the room who is so obvious to me. I give in and offer both hands to Dan alone, feeling God’s hurt the moment I do so. Walking through Nose Hill Park in the spring, hand in hand with Dan. I tentatively ask if he feels anything has changed in his spiritual life over the last year. Relief floods my heart when he responds that he now sees God as more personal, rather than just a great other. Walking through Nose Hill Park in the fall, hand in hand with Dan again. He reveals his fears about marriage in light of his parents’ unexpected divorce, and also his concerns about my condescending attitude towards his faith. Dan also wants me to explain why it upsets me that Dan is amused by his room-mate’s poster of two scantily-clan lesbians locked in an intimate embrace. Driving alone in my car on the Deerfoot, which is slick with ice and half-melted snow. Dan is in BC, visiting friends for a week. The time apart made two things very clear to me: first, I feel like a moon without a planet to orbit when he’s gone. Second, even when Dan’s around, I still feel like a dead, useless rock. Where is the sun that both earth and its moon should be orbiting? I’m driving too fast again, driving while crying again, and I mentally reprimand myself for always leaving these sorts of reflections for solitary car rides on the highway. I picture myself allowing my car to swerve just a touch too close to the snow piled along the curve of the road preceding a very solid-looking concrete overpass. Nope. Considered that last winter too, and I still can’t do it. I can’t hurt my family that way. Dang. Too much force on the knot- the necklace snaps in two and I swivel my head around to see where the second piece has fallen.

There it is. And there’s the thing that went THUD when it hit my head. It’s a bottle of LIFE juice. I grasp the partially empty bottle with mingled irritation and admiration. It is a tall, slender bottle with a trendy, simple label; reminiscent of all the elegance of red wine, without the glass material for the bottle or the disappointing dry, bitter taste that so inappropriately accompanies a liquid so richly coloured. Marketed as a wonder drink for healing, LIFE juice contains nearly all the most anti-carcinogenic ingredients touted by the research Nolan has delved into. Once you get past the mild sea-weed taste, the juice has a fairly enjoyable mixed berries flavour. The only draw-back is that the bottle is too tall to fit vertically, or even diagonally, into any refrigerator I’ve ever encountered. And it’s not helping the one person we most wanted it to. It’s such a dark red, I note idly, still holding the bottle. Red like blood, like pretty packaging used for parcels at Christmas, like grape juice served in little plastic shot glasses at Evangelical church Communion services, like my sleep-deprived eyes, like the powerful chemo drug they’re injecting into my mother’s veins to slow the cancer down. Slow, but not stop, the doctors said. Lieomyosarcoma. A rapidly reproducing cancer that spreads through muscles not controlled by conscious thought- i.e. lungs, the digestive tract, the abdomen, kidneys, etc. Rare, it affects less than 1% of all cancer patients. There are no documented cases of survival. Christian friends from church and beyond keep telling us she is going to live anyway, Jesus will heal her, keep praying, they’re praying. My conscious prayers mainly consist of simple things: “Please God, let her keep down a ½ cup of fruit smoothie today. I put the LIFE juice in it! She hasn’t had anything but a few sips of ginger-ale stay down for three days…” These prayers are answered with “yes” and “no” about equally as often. Well, maybe 50% is pretty good. I mean, maybe people who don’t have this much prayer are only successful keeping telescopic quantities of food down 20% of the time. Seriously, God, what the hell is this? I know you’re capable of better than random chance. Why are you willing to fix the stupid, unnecessary odometer on my car for me even when I don’t speak to you for weeks, but you won’t heal my warm, kind, faithful, loving mother when everyone we know is praying for her?! Priorities!!! Death isn’t the end. She’d be happy in heaven. She could see the Tree of Life where Jono made tick marks for his height and Jesus’ so he could finally find out for sure which is shorter. If mom dies, the last shreds of Chasey’s faith in a just or good God will be annihilated. Nolan’s probably right- this is totally going to be an Elijah + God versus the 450 Baal prophets + 400 Asherah prophets. When mom gets better miraculously, Chasey, maybe Tachae and Jeana, and who knows all else will see the glory and love of God and be changed. How long can I continue working full-time in the helping services while also trying to provide relief care for my mother every other evening and successfully focus on my on-line counseling course starting in the new year before my empathy pool dries up into a puddle? I wonder if anyone ever goes swimming in the River of Life the way the native people go swimming in the blessed holy waters of Lac Ste. Anne. I hope so. I don’t enjoy skating much and if there are any rivers of life left in my soul, they’ve frozen solid like the ones on Mars. I push the bottle aside.

Another shiny glint. Ah, a lighter for camping. Probably one of the ones drowned on my pilgrimage. I wonder if it still lights. Click. Ouch. Damn it, why does anyone ever use those things? Well, now I know it still works... Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation (Hebrews 11:1-2). I still believe you’re good, God. I see you in who my mother is, in her loving care for others despite her own suffering. But I don’t understand what you’re doing, and I’m having a hard time taking Valerie’s commission to praise you for the health our mother still has. In some ways, I feel like going to pre-bereavement counseling demonstrates despair. I know you’re capable of healing my mother if you want to. But I also know from personal experience that sometimes you choose not to heal, and sometimes people we want to believe mis-prophesy, and I need to be prepared if you’re planning to take the heart out of our family. I need to know if there's enough lighter fluid left for that potential darkness.

Let it Snow

2008-12-07T19:59:00.001-08:00

December: Yes, yes, yes. I know deep, wet snow really sucks for people who must work, live, or drive in it, but I'm SOOOOOOOO happy it's finally here; sparkling white, soft, and making the darkness recede for a day or two. Snow is a soft voice whispering to me, "There's still mercy, even for the fat cows of Bashan. There's a little time left before the desert comes in full." So I went walking in the snow today for all it was worth. There are days of judgment coming, though. The first is the 16th this month. That is the day of my final exam, and the day by which I must hand in my last two papers. I'm feeling very stressed about those papers. They should be easy. They need only be 3 double spaced pages each, and one is already 1/3 done, but I have not handed in a single paper within the allotted amount of time yet this semester, so none of them have earned me any marks greater than 0. This is the consequence for being bitter and unmotivated about having to take an intro class in my 6th year of university. I should have known better: God always uses the topics covered in each of my classes within days or weeks of my learning them in a real life situation. January: The formerly mentioned papers and exam are finished, and now it is a season of waiting. Waiting to find out if I passed my course, and therefore have finished my degree; waiting for my agenda to return from its road trip to Saskatchewan with my sister Val so I can begin trying to pick up additional work shifts this month; waiting to see what God wants me to do with my time and money now that school is done and my nannying hours have been cut from 2 days per week to 1; waiting for my absent room and house-mates to come home to our vacant house of prayer; waiting for summer. This is a strange waiting room, a sort of earthly purgatory. At times I feel as if I don't really exist, yet all of my hours are filled with people and activities and thoughts. I think I might actually be missing school. How ironic that the thing I hated most about University is the thing I now wish for: a consistent schedule with clearly defined dead-lines and directives. Instead, my life now consists of endless days. Not weeks, or months, or semesters, or years. Just days, filled with hours, filled with whatever I choose. My choices are alien to me. For the first time in my life, there are no voracious appetites consuming my passion, no unhealthy addictions distracting me from my path. I feel no desire to read fiction novels, no craving for familiar or unfamiliar stories in a film or textual format. The only foods I feel like eating are fruits, vegetables, and nuts. My fear of at least brief fasts is gone. I spend a day or two here and a day or two there, allowing myself to work, visit, or be alone as opportunities present themselves, content with each state while it lasts. Where are we going, God? I cannot claim to have done anything to achieve this lackadaisical zen, so I'm guessing that You gave it to me as a gift, a preparation. "These are tools, not toys," warned a somber Father Christmas to the Pevensie children of C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. What do you need me to be prepared for, God? "Uh oh," understates Pauncha, tied to a log floating down a river. "Let me guess," drolls the surprisingly resilient Emperor Kuzko tied to the same log, "We're about to go careening over a huge waterfall." "Yep," answers Pauncha matter-of-factly. "Sharp rocks at the bottom?" inquires Kuzko with disinterest. "Most likely," Pauncha replies calmly. "Bring it on."

Statues Run Really Fast

2008-11-12T20:29:00.001-08:00

An addendum to the previous post: children have very little difficulty suspending their disbelief in the illogical or impossible. I should concede: L's mommy and li'l girl game has morphed somewhat into a new theme- that of monsters and heroes, good guys and bad guys. However, L is a liberal-minded girl, so monsters are not necessarily bad guys. Hence, one of her favourite games to play outside is the statue game. The statue game is quite simple: when L is tired of walking, she pretends to be a statue, symbolized classically by the British royal guard posture. Then she looks at me and prompts, "You say, 'Look mom, a statue!' Okay?!" Something in me cries out against this potential loss of my independence so I have never yet obliged her by saying those exact words, though what difference it makes I have no idea. "Oh my goodness," I respond with amazement, "It's a talking statue! Weird!" By this time, L is re-energized and ready to move again, so she grins and proposes, "Let's have a race!" "A race with a statue?" "Yep, cuz statues run really fast," L informs me seriously. "Yeah, statues run really fast," I agree. Did I just say that? Oblivious to my psychological dissonance, Lauren happily continues prodding me, "And then you go, 'Hey mom, the statue is following us.'" "AAUUUGGGHHHHH! That statue is following me! I can't get away! What does it want??!" I cry in angst, to L's delight. And when eventually the talking, grinning, fast-running statue catches her terrified prey (me), she invites me over to her house for a cup of tea. What the?!...Where am I??? Well obviously I'm in the middle of a Get Fuzzy comic strip. I kind of enjoy the surrealism, though. I imagine Jesus' disciples must have had similar feelings when he'd do things like cook them breakfast on the beach after they had watched him get tortured to death and buried. Come along, Faye, and embrace the weirdness. Yes, God.

The Nanny Club

2008-11-11T09:18:00.001-08:00

Contrary to popular belief, this is not a long, blunt object I take with me to work to assist in child-wrangling. Nor is it something hard I feel the need to beat my head with repeatedly during the day. Actually, it refers to the fact that I have joined the ranks of nannies attending every family's children in the well-manicured blocks of Calgary. To my surprise, nannying is proving to be the highlight of my week. I care for two very cute, very energetic, very imaginative girls, ages 3 and 5, about 1-3 days per week...and I am sure this is God's recompense for all the days my mother got a phone call from my elementary wondering why I was an hour late to school after lunch again. Much of the time, I feel like I am losing my mind. Especially by 2:30 when L, the three year old, is prodding me to say my line in our mommy and li'l girl game for the 27th time that day. It doesn't matter that we are supposed to be colouring now, because "This is the mommy crayon, and this is the daddy crayon, and this is the baby crayon. You be the daddy crayon and the mommy crayon and I'll be the baby crayon. So the baby is hiding over here and the mommy crayon says, 'Where's the baby?' Okay?!!" She's not really asking if I want to do that; rather, L's graciously reminding the idiot nanny of what she's somehow forgotten to do even after three and a half months' practice and today's rehearsal at lunch in which, "This [piece of celery] is the mommy, and this [piece of cheese] is the daddy, and these [cherry tomatoes] are the babies. You be the mommy and this baby and I'll be the daddy and this baby. And the mommy celery says, 'Where's the baby?!' Okay?!!" "Yeah, sure, okay. Heeey, how about we take the dog for a walk?" I wheedle, as if changing the scenery will somehow distract her from her favourite schema. Unphased, she replies, "No thanks. Let's go play the restaurant game!" The restaurant game is a variant of the mommy and li'l girl game in which one of us is a restaurant chef and the other is the mommy, who has at least 2 baby doll girls with her who like donuts and fried chicken but not turnips. "No, your mom asked us to take the dog for a walk, so we're going to go for a walk," I insist with a voice that cleverly hides my desperation in grown-up firmness. Trumped by the mommy card, L acquiesces that we must go, but isn't above a little more bargaining; "Can I ride my bike?" "No, not today. It's too icy." "Can we go to the park?" "Sure, we can go to the park." "HOORAY! Then you be the mommy, and I'll be the little girl, and Rosie [their uber-friendly little dog] can be our baby puppy!...." GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! So how did I get myself into this predicament? Well, per usual, it's God's fault. When I finished last semester's winter classes, I fully intended to go straight into hunting for a full-time job within walking distance of my house doing something directly related to family counselling. I applied to every teen group home agency in Calgary. Not even an e-mail of interest in response. I took my resume to my friend, who helped me edit it so it looked more professional and tried again. Nothing. I started applying for other things: relief child development workers, high school career counsellors, school-family liaison workers, psychologist assistant positions... I couldn't understand my lack of success. Everyone I knew already in those agencies insisted they were desperate for workers and would hire anyone breathing who applied and didn't have a record of pedophilia. Fellow class-mates informed me I was probably over-qualified for many of the positions I was applying for. What the deuce? So one day, more than two months into the summer when I was bemoaning my continued part-time employment as a glorified house-keeper to my friend Melanie, with whom I was hanging out while she nannied for her "second family," Melanie suggested I try becoming a nanny. "I make $18 an hour to make crafts, drink their expensive lattes, watch moto-cross and the Backyardigans, eat fresh fruit, put the kids to bed, then search the web for my ideal tattoo for hours. You should try it- with your education you could easily be making as much as me." So she set me up on www.canadiannannies.com. Two weeks later, I had found my ideal family- part-time work with two preschoolers, needed on the days I wasn't at school, the position conveniently to commence after Nolan & Sherry's wedding and Jen's move to Strathmore. The first meeting was with just the parents at a Starbucks. Uncharacteristically early, I sat out in my car and prayed, "God, I don't want to do something meaningless. If this is the family you want me to work with, then please make it abundantly clear to both me and them at this meeting." The meeting went well. Their descriptions of their girls were hauntingly similar to how Melanie and I have described ourselves and our relationship when we were much younger, the schedules looked like a match, and the family lived within 15 minutes drive of both my house-keeping job and my school. But, most intriguing, they were fascinated with my experience as a summer missionary at a bible camp. "I think that's great," A (the mom) told me earnestly, "One of the reasons we wanted a nanny was so that our girls would be exposed to another worldview other than our own. We're not Christians ourselves, but we have some good friends and family who are. I think it'd be neat if you'd tell the girls some bible stories, or pray with them at lunch. It's something they wouldn't get from us." You really can't get a more obviously open door than that. Okay, God, I guess I'm going to be a nanny. At times my job is surreal. I get paid $15 an hour to eat food made by one of the best chefs in Calgary, drink Starbucks coffee, jump on a trampoline, go swimming at the local leisure centre, visit Heritage Park, colour pictures, play at the park, make talking cookies out of playdough, run with two girls and a dog surrounded by woods, wild grasses, hills, a creek, and the mountains at sunset or sunrise, sing camp songs, read Robert Munsch tales, go tobogganing, make snow reindeer, and tell the girls stories about my childhood and God. Moments of pure joy, of absolute beauty. Admittedly, I have found it necessary for the sake of my sanity to limit the girls to telling each of my stories once per day, but I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I see and hear God every time I see or hear the girls. It all began when God started nudging me to at least thank Him for our food when I was making lunch for L. So I did. "That's a funny word you just said," L commented. "Which word?" I asked, puzzled. "That word that you said just now," L said, as if that made everything obvious. Oh wait. "You mean, 'Jesus'?" "Yeah, that one. That's a funny word." This lead to my first, somewhat clumsy explanation of who Jesus is. It was also the first time L ate her entire lunch within a decent amount of time with no prompts, bribes, threats, persuasion, or cajoling whatsoever. Our next lunch together, after I prayed, L asked, "Who's Jesus?" This time, I gave her the background of why Jesus came to earth- beginning with the story of Creation and The Fall. She was hooked. For weeks afterward, she would ask, "Who's Jesus?" every day I saw her. She even began asking her mother, who, being something of a religious pluralist, seemed a bit disconcerted, much to my fiendish delight. On one of the rare occasions when I was working in the evening and therefore looking after both girls, L innocently asked her favourite question. So I sucked it up and told her the story again. And, as God says, it was good. L's older sister, C had never heard it before. Now they are both hooked. They ask for the story when we drive in the car, when we eat snacks or meals, when we go for walks. To avoid either losing my mind or disobeying God's firm nudges to keep letting them come unto Me and hindering them not (Matt. 19:14; Mark 10:14; Luke 18:16), I slightly change the story each time, adding a bit more to pull the stories of Creation, the Fall, the Virgin Birth, the Crucifixion and Resurrection, and their immediate lives together. I have never been good at evangelism. This is probably both a personality thing (I'm not especially out-going) and a reaction against poorly conducted evangelism (though that's not a good excuse- the cure for bad theology and evangelism is not no theology or evangelism). Well, this time I have no excuse. I was given full permission to speak by the girls' parents. I have a warm relationship of trust built with the girls that lends credulity to my stories of faith. So I tell the story. Over and over and over again. And consequently, God is revealing to me what Jesus meant when he said, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3). Children like repetition. Lots and lots and lots of repetition. See above. Children like asking questions. Lots and lots and lots of questions. More tenacious than a news reporter, they want to know when, what, why, who, and how: "Are we there yet? Do you know...? What's that? How long is five minutes? Why? Where's the beetle's house? When can we eat? Where is your mommy and papa? How do I say that word? Does your mommy let you have candy? Why not? How do you make a three? Is God here having supper with us right now? Can you sit on God's head?" Children passionately and optimistically seek the time, attention, and affection of their parents and parent-like figures in their lives: "I made this picture for you, mommy! I'm helping, daddy! Will you please play with me? Can I help clean? Watch what I can do- I can hop on one foot. See?! Can you please read me a story? Look at the necklace I made for you. Will you carry me? Guess what?! I got all my spelling words right!" Children are incredibly trusting: "Catch me! I'm jumping down the stairs! Push me higher! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha- swerve the car again!" ...but only of people they know who have proved trustworthy: "You can't talk to a stranger." And the nanny club continues. Last week I set my room-mate, Jaz, up on canadiannannies.com- she's now enjoying the ego-boosting experience A terms "nanny-poaching" of having middle to upper class suburban moms run each other's white, black, or silver coloured Volvo, VW, or BMW off the road to attain Jaz' services for their li'l shining stars. And if the price is right, Jaz may soon join the club of getting paid $16 per hour to take a nap, go for a walk to the park, and drink other people's expensive teas and coffees. Amen.

A Walk to Remember

2008-08-06T18:55:00.000-07:00

1-2 August 2008 I guess it was just that time of the month again. That’s right: the time of the month for Faye to have another misadventure related to being Faye and going the wrong way at the wrong time…or the right way at the wrong time…or the wrong way at the right time, depending on how you want to look at it. I have included, for your convenience, two maps to explain how this story came to be. One is the map I used, and the other is the map I had in my head that I should have used but couldn’t find and didn’t think to ask Nolan for until after it was much too late. On the map I should have used, you will see that there appears to be a relatively short path leading from Elbow Pass to Elbow Lake to Tombstone Backcountry Campground. This is the route I had pictured in my head from a previous back-packing excursion to Elbow Lake with Vicky and Carolyn. This is the route Nolan, Sherry, Melanie, and Chasey took on Friday morning to get to the campground for our sibling back-packing trip. This is a nice, mostly gently-sloped and straightforward 7 kilometer long hike that takes approximately 3 hours to traverse. This is the route I was supposed to take in the evening with Dan after he got off work.

Unfortunately, the on-line instructions I looked up linked me with the second map. As you can see, this second map involves a large eye-shaped loop. We started at a lonely northern spot with the prophetic name of Forgetmenot Pond and took the southern path past Big Elbow Campground and on towards Tombstone. This path was composed of flooded out trail sections, alternating steep ascents and descents, and is approximately 28 kilometers in length. This is the route Dan and I started at 8pm on Friday.

Friday started out well enough. Melanie, Chasey, and I were only 15 minutes late arriving at Nolan and Sherry's house to pack our belongings in among the large amounts of borrowed camping gear Sherry had scavenged from friends. Almost two hours later, I left Melanie and Chasey with Nolan and Sherry to drive up together, and I took the backpacks Dan and myself would be carrying later. I went to work for an hour and managed to avoid getting wood stain on my clothing despite my frenzied painting, then raced across the city and was only five minutes late meeting Lisa for lunch. I had enough money in my account to pay for my meal. After lunch, I stopped at Safeway to pick up a few grocery items my siblings had requested, then returned my dad's car to him. I finished laundry, filled water bottles, packed the last groceries and a hatchet into the backpacks, made a picnic dinner for Dan and myself, showered and changed clothes. At my dad's request, I wrote out detailed instructions on how to get to Tombstone, since my parents had decided to meet us there on Monday to celebrate Melanie's birthday. At 5 pm, Chasey called to ask when I thought Dan and I were leaving (I had to admit I didn't really know when he would get off of work) and to tell me that it was pouring there. Then he confused me thoroughly with a comment about leaving the campsite to go to Cochrane until the weather was nicer. Oh. I guess that means the trail is really short. That's good- we won't have much day-light left by the time we start our hike.

Shortly thereafter, Dan called to say he would arrive shortly and that we needed to stop at his house to pick up a few things. I hugged my mother good-bye, we loaded Dan's car with the gear, and set off to pick up a few essentials, such as oil and gas for Dan's car so we wouldn't end up stranded on the highway somewhere. The sun was shining, Dan appeared happy with my odd food choices (spicy canned salmon with garlic dill pickles and marble cheddar on squirrely bread, carrot-pineapple-strawberry-banana-cherry-blueberry-yogurt smoothies, fresh avocados, and a choice of fresh fruit), and Dan managed to simultaneously navigate my i-pod's sound settings while also driving on 16th Avenue reading a road map without crashing. It occurred to me that I should call home and make sure my parents knew where they were going. Even though I thoroughly confused them both with my anti-map interpretation skills, Dan and my dad seemed to be in agreement about how to get there. I was satisfied. I band-aided and duck-taped my heel (in a completely unrelated previous misadventure I accidentally cut my heel open when I stepped in a hole in a tree grate down-town after leaving the DC because I was there for a shift I didn't actually have).

"We just drive until the road pretty much ends," Dan explained patiently. The map said he was right. It just didn't make any sense to me. The road just kept going when Carolyn, Vicky, and I turned into the parking lot for Elbow Lake. Where's the rest of the road? And why isn't Galatea anywhere on the map? I know we passed Galatea on the way there... Dad said my instructions were the "back way." Maybe we're just coming in from the opposite side and the map doesn't show the rest of the road clearly. Stupid map. Feeling nervous, I sent a silent plea to God, asking for his protection and guidance for the weekend.

The air was much colder by the time we found the correct parking lot for the trail head. As Dan had said, the road simply ended- it was a camping site. Neither the parking lot nor the camping ground were at all familiar, and I didn't recognize any of the other vehicles in the parking lot, but since I had no suggestions for how to find the trail head to Elbow Lake I remembered and we were standing in front of a sign for the Elbow Trail, I decided to just go with it. The sign was nearly illegible with corrosion, so we counted ourselves fortunate when an older lady came out of her RV to ask us where we were going.

"You're going where?!" her eyes bugged out in disbelief, "Tonight?! Are you sure you don't want to just stay the night here and then start in the morning?" When we'd convinced her that we were in earnest about starting out, she asked which way we intended to travel- taking the Little Elbow or the Big Elbow Trail. I think we told her the Little Elbow, and we followed her directions precisely, so how we ended up on the Big Elbow will always remain a mystery. Regardless, my optimistic estimate for time of arrival in Tombstone was midnight, but gauging from the lady's reaction I strongly suspected a more realistic guess would be 2:00am. Last night's five hours of sleep is going to feel like a long, long time ago...And so, after waving a friendly goodbye in response to the lady's "see you in an hour" and leaving behind a bottle of glacier-cold water we didn't want to carry with us, we began.

There weren't many other people on the trail, though we did pass two couples going in the opposite direction in the first half-hour of our trip. Warning signs instructed us to avoid the equestrian trails, since these were completely flooded out. As we came out of a forested area and were about to begin a more open segment beside a creek, we found an information sign reminiscent of the ones posted at the tops of amusement rides like the Drop of Doom. It read: "You are about to begin a 28 kilometer hike. ARE YOU PREPARED?" I felt my stomach drop a bit. No wonder the others felt they needed to leave in the morning...No wonder they'd called wondering why Dan and I hadn't left yet... I felt very glad Dan was holding my hand. Dan wisely chose that time to start telling me stories about previous camping adventures he'd had with his best friends. Apparently, just for kicks, they like to walk as far off mountain trails as they can go, then camp where no one would ever be able to find them again should they have some sort of minor mishap, like getting mauled by a bear. I felt much better. The knowledge that I wasn't the most experienced camper of the two of us was reassuring.

We walked. I felt a bit shaky, so I proactively pulled out the fruit left over from supper to eat as we walked. I still felt shaky, so I proactively ate an entire package of Starburst, after which I felt much better but my tongue felt much less so. I silently asked God to please not let me die of a low blood sugar level while we were out here in the middle of nowhere. A comfort and a silent voice whispered back, "I'm here. And this would be a very good opportunity to initiate praying out loud with Dan." The path wove in and out of wooded areas along creeks that would occasionally branch off in directions such as perpendicular to our path. No problem. There was still enough light left to figure out where the path resumed again later, and enough rocks that our feet didn't get particularly wet.

We walked. The wind became colder. We stopped cursing our hoodies for being so warm. We discussed things like how the feeling of having a heavy backpack digging into your shoulders, pressing you down, and crushing your lungs might be sort of similar to crucifixion. While retrieving our coats we discovered that we also had among our assets a head-lamp and a small flashlight. Oh yeah, Sherry loaned hers to me this morning. I totally forgot. Thanks, God. Since it was now late dusk, we proactively put the flashlights in our pockets where we had a hope of finding them again. Despite the fact that there were no clouds above us, intermittent showers would follow us around wherever we walked. Dang cariboo, hiding in the shrubs beside the path and spitting at unsuspecting tourists. We ate granola bars to spite them. When we stopped at the 3 or 4 hour's walking mark, I mentally determined that I may need to scale back my delirious ambitions of walking 8 hours per day on next summer's pilgrimage.

We stopped. Admired the stars coming out. I ate a package of gummies half way up what we would later be horrified to discover was only the first of endless long, steep inclines in the path. God, I'm running out of reaction candy. Help. A familiar voice whispered again, "You need to pray out loud with Dan." Why is that such a hard request? I asked myself. So at long last, I began praying out loud: "Hey God, thank you for looking after us this far. Please let the food last until we reach the others. Please continue helping me not have low blood sugars. Please let the others still be awake and waiting for us when we arrive so we'll be able to find them in the dark. Amen." I felt better.

It became increasingly dark. Eventually we were able to determine our direction only because the path was a light grey blotch which contrasted with the black blotches that were forests of trees on either side of us and the black sky above us. The hard crunch of white stones beneath our tired feet was comforting: it meant that we were still on the path. We ceased talking, except for occasional comments such as, "Hey, I just walked into a shrubbery." I considered pushing Dan into the trees sometimes, but I was too tired and I was pretty sure that Dan was too tired to take it jovially.

"Is that a sign?" We squinted. I found my flashlight first, and it was just bright enough to highlight the words, "Big Elbow Campground." "No way," I felt myself shrink a little on the inside; we were only half-way there and it was past 11:00 pm. We used the headlamp to look at another sign across from the first, which turned out to be a map. After Dan talked me out of just hiking into the Big Elbow Campsite and illegally camping there, we headed on once again. Then our path disappeared. Or maybe just the moonlight we'd been using to see it. Dan attempted to dig out the headlamp, but dropped it into the abyss of darkness at our feet. I retrieved my flashlight and prayed it still had enough light left to find the headlamp. It did. Exactly. Then it died. We found the path again and turned the headlamp off until absolutely needed.

"Do any of these mountains like a tombstone to you?" Dan asked, looking around. "They all do," I told him, only half-joking. "Hey, is that a sign?" We fished out the headlamp. Yes, it was a sign. It was a sign for a snow-mobiling path. I could have cried. We kept walking. The path began to sort itself into a pattern of long ascents and descents. Dan worked to keep us both going with optimistic statements like, "The campground has to be at the top of this rise," or "It must be at the bottom of this hill." We stopped a few times so I could desperately shout at the top of my lungs, "Nolan? Melanie? Chasey? Sherry? HELL-OOOO!!! HELLO?!" I began to doubt myself: did we miss a turn-off in the mysteries of the thick growth? Did we pass right by the camp and were now on our way to the Mt. Romulus campground? "No," Dan rationally assured me over and over, "The map showed Tombstone as being on the curve before the next long straight to Romulus. We haven't gone around any large curves yet, and worse case scenario if we did we'd only end up at Romulus next anyways."

The time came when we absolutely needed the headlamp. It was because we didn't want to step in the minor creeks crossing our path at the bottom of every descent. Actually, crossing those puddles and creeks were the only times when Dan and I stopped holding hands. Which was good, because between the slipperiness of the path rocks, the slopes, and my knees occasionally going on vacations, it was really handy to have someone there to hold me up (pun entirely intended). Although slightly distracted by the fact that I desperately needed to pee, and had been in such a state for hours, I was reminded of an earlier conversation with Dan in which he told me about a dream where he was carrying/supporting me. At the time, I laughed because of the particular symbols used to convey that idea, but I had recognized the conversation as being an answer from God to my doubts. So here was the dream, incarnated. And really, it felt kind of dream-like at times. There was a sense of timelessness that enveloped us there, a bittersweet rhythm. I really want to stop walking and lay down and sleep. But the stars are really beautiful. I really need to pee. But I'm really happy holding Dan's hand and walking in the silence and freshness of the mountains.

And then we really needed the headlamp. Not only had clouds covered over the moon and eliminated our only natural light, but there was nothing for the moonlight to reflect on- our path was composed of dirt and pine needles. We came to the top of a rise where the path followed the edge of a cliff and were sliced with a particularly icy wind. There was no sign of our campground, just another for snowmobiling. I decided it was time for a private trip into the woods. When I came back, Dan suggested we sit and rest for a while. We did. I started to fall asleep. Then I became cold. I was still wearing shorts and it was windy and raining and cold. I asked Dan if he wanted to continue walking or to just set up camp where we were and continue again in the morning. "Well we can't camp here- the wind's too cold and the rocky path will really suck to sleep on," Dan answered. I vaguely considered pushing him off the cliff, but I was too tired. Sigh. Fine, I guess we'll keep walking, I thought dismally as my teeth began to chatter. But apparently what Dan actually meant was that we should set up the tent in the woods behind us where it was softer and more sheltered. Thank you God, for leaving us one of the tents.

And so, feeling sort of useless, I held up the headlamp with my frozen hands while Dan figured out in the dark in the woods in the rain how to put up our tent. I mentally chastised myself for feeling grouchy about how long it was taking, since I was sure Dan's hands were probably colder than mine from trying to get the tent together. Amazingly, the only thing Dan wasn't able to figure out at 4 in the morning after five hours of sleep the night previous and approximately 8 hours hiking after 8 hours work, was the entrance way to the tent. Getting sleeping bags unpacked, wet layers off, and dry, warm layers on in our tent, which was located on a slant, in a modest manner was interesting. I curled up in my sleeping bag and felt like I was going to die of cold. Dan told me stories about winter camping. Dan, I am NEVER going winter camping with you. Ever.

I did fall asleep. I didn't freeze to death. I did end up sliding down to the bottom of the tent and then having to worm my way back up to the top again a few times. I didn't wake up Dan when I started giggling about being unable to worm up the slippery, sloped floor of our tent while cocooned in a twisted up sleeping bag. I did thank God that I had switched our family's thin sleeping bag for the newer and warmer one I had borrowed from Andrea. I didn't have any low blood sugars in the night (Thank you, God, again). I did find myself sort of curled up against Dan in the morning. I didn't feel too guilty about it since we were in separate sleeping bags. I did get up to go to the bathroom, get dressed, and take my blood test before Dan woke up. Except it wasn't as easy as it sounds, because our tent had slid downhill in the night and the door was now right up against a pine tree which I had to climb around while also climbing over our wet gear and climbing into my wet shoes.

Still, the morning felt good. Much to my satisfaction, my guess at the time being about 9 am was off by only 3 minutes according to my blood tester. To my irritation, my blood test was quite high. I took a small amount of insulin to bring it back down again, found some dried blueberries and cranberries for Dan to eat, and helped pack up the gear again. Food remaining in our possession: a package of graham crackers, a bag of marshmallows, a bag of sliced mushrooms, and a bag of smushed tomatoes. We decided we wanted real food with my siblings. We started walking.

Unfortunately, the path became much narrower after our camping break so we had a difficult time holding hands while walking. Other things made up for this, though; such as the warm sunshine and the discovery of wild strawberries growing alongside the cliff-bordering path. My sense of relationship equity was restored when I discovered I was much better at making these discoveries than Dan.

Then we came to a creek. Our pathway continued on the other side. There were no stepping stones or logs to use as a bridge. It was too wide and deep to jump across. "Let's try going further down. Maybe there's another place to cross," I suggested. There wasn't. So we took off our shoes and socks, rolled up our pants, put on our sandals, and broke open the package of graham crackers. If you're going to cross a glacier cold creek with extremely sore muscles and little sleep, it's better to do it fortified with some kind of sustenance. Then we crossed. I laughed at Dan when his pants became wet but I considerately didn't push him over. Once on the other side, we walked through scrubby low shrubs, crossed another glacier cold stream, then discovered that the path crossed back the way it came so we had to cross the small and large glacier cold creeks all over again. Fortunately, the fifth time we came to a creek needing to be crossed, there were some stepping stones, and the sixth crossing had a nice 3 inch wide log to cross, provided one's balance was steady.

Then we were at the bottom of a hill. At the top of the hill we could see a sign. We decided to switch back into our hiking shoes, then start up the hill to read it. Holding hands, we stared up at the hill. It wasn't a large hill, but it seemed huge to our miserable calf muscles. "If that's another snowmobiling sign, can we vandalize it?" I asked Dan. "Yes," said Dan magnanimously, "Or at least throw rocks at it. I think that would make me feel much better." "Okay." So we started up. And the sign said...

"Welcome to Tombstone Backcountry Campground." And there was Sherry, sitting on the path warming herself in the sun. She looked kind of surprised to see us (in a welcoming, happy sort of surprised way). "Hey! Nolan and Chasey just left to go looking for you. They went the other way. We weren't expecting you from this direction...I'll see if I can run and catch them." Melanie came over to welcome us to their campsite, and not long after Sherry returned with Nolan and Chasey. Nolan and Sherry kindly heated up and served us leftover chili from the night before. Nothing ever tasted so great. "Ha, ha!" cried Nolan triumphantly, "Sherry thought you'd stopped in Little Elbow to camp when it got too late. I rolled my eyes and said, 'Yeah right. It's Faye. She's probably gotten lost and is on some ridiculous misadventure.'" Then, in order to prevent a similar misadventure story from happening to my parents, to whom I had given an identical cursed map for getting to the campsite, Nolan and Chasey had to hike to the bottom of the mountain to find a phone to redirect our parents. And Dan and I? Well, we went back to bed (for a couple hours, in separate sleeping bags, in a dry, properly set up, level tent, under the watch of my siblings). The End. Or should I say, 'Amen'?

A Trashy Theology

2008-07-30T22:36:00.000-07:00

Following a Garbage Picker God

Some of you will remember my previous post, Garbage Picker God. This post is something of a follow-up to that, composed of edited (and rearranged) excerpts from a spiritual autobiography I had to write for my Spaces of the Heart course with Charles Nienkirchen last winter. I think most people have a compulsive desire to put things right in the world, however they define right and world. My fight has always been in the arena of relationships, with right defined as 'harmoniously interconnected'. The second-born of four siblings, I have often been the mediator in my family, both among siblings, and between siblings and parents. Being the oldest daughter in a family that has since expanded to include two foster siblings and three “other” siblings, I also became something of a counsellor. Peace-making and counselling roles were extended to friendships beginning in elementary, and lead to other positions of trust, such as school peer mediator, camp counsellor, and crisis line counsellor. Much to my surprise, while working as a crisis line counsellor for my practicum I discovered I had a knack for connecting with women and men who were in, currently escaping, or healing from abusive relationships. I am nearly finished a BA in behavioural sciences, which I intend to use for entry into counselling psychology graduate studies. My aim is to one day work as a family counsellor, helping to restore families and individuals who have been damaged by unhealthy relationship patterns. Two activities from my childhood remain salient markers of who I see myself as in God: first, picking up pop-cans and bottles for recycling to save the earth and my parents’ finances; second, recurring nightmares of failure to save vulnerable others, or myself. Three people played into these themes of identity significantly: an elementary school friend, M, my older brother, Nolan, and my youth pastor, Sindy. I met M in grade 5. I was surprised by her offer of friendship. She was a core member of our school’s “cool” girl group, and I had always believed myself to be a sort of geek or outsider to them. My family was lower middle class, average-looking, and Christian. Although never without friends, none of us were ever popular (that I know of). I became M’s protégé: adopted into her group of friends, I did my best to conform to their standards of fashion and social behaviour. However, half way through the year, M became estranged from the rest of the group. One of the other girls “suggested” that I should stop hanging out with her as well. Feeling indignant, and supposing their warning to be spiteful, I told them I could choose my friends for myself, thank you very much. As a reward for my faithfulness, M invited me to a sleep-over that weekend. That night became a turning point in my life, in the worst way. M wanted to play make-believe. I was a very imaginative child, so normally I would have been delighted. However, M wanted to make-believe that I was a John, and she was a prostitute. I should have called my parents and asked to go home right then. But I was too afraid of losing her friendship, so I stayed and submitted. She told me “secrets,” such as what the other kids at school thought about me: garbage-picker, geek, loser, nose-picker, poor. I left feeling dirty and violated. I never told my parents about that part of our sleep-over, and I never hung out with M again, but my view of my self and how others saw me were ruled for years afterwards by the names “others” called me. I began having nightmares of children being sexually and physically abused by adults. I no longer trusted other children to like me and remain my friend if they knew me well. I withdrew deeply into myself, rarely speaking, and maintaining a flat emotional expression around both friends and family members. I rarely invited friends from school home. Unable to cope with my fears of rejection and feelings of helplessness, I retreated into fantasy worlds of my making in which I could be whatever I felt I was not in life: strong, beautiful, rich, powerful. Oddly, I could never imagine myself happy or loved. As the years went by, my fantasy worlds of retreat fell increasingly out of my control, in terms of both content and timing. My character and those she loved would be tortured, raped, and murdered over and over, through most of the day and night. My inability to control my thoughts, especially their sexual content, filled me with shame. I felt like garbage, inside and out. Collecting garbage for recycling, now a humiliating act, became my penance. About the same time my peer relationships went down-hill, my close relationship with my older brother began to crumble as he became inexplicably cruel, looking for ways to hurt my feelings or make me angry. Knowing I felt sensitive about my weight, he used to taunt me by calling me “Santa Clause.” It was an ugly betrayal, since he had always been my fearless hero. In addition, my younger sister followed in his path of unprovoked verbal barbs long after Nolan had repented. But he did repent. In fact, years after we had stopped fighting and I had forgotten we were ever anything other than best friends, he stunned me again. This time, by apologizing with tears in his eyes for “being such a jerk” when we were younger. He is now one of the most conscientious guys I know at respectfully and sincerely telling all kinds of women, including myself, that they are beautiful. Whenever I think of Nolan now, I envision him as he was when we went hiking with a group of people from Epic several summers ago: running (in sandals?) down the very steep and very shaley side of a mountain, tireless and without fear. It was a challenging hike for me to reach even the lower summit, let alone the upper summit Nolan ran up and down without me. But I went because Nolan invited me, challenged me, believed in me. Our deep friendship is a constant reminder to me that God can heal any relationship he is invited into. Sindy was my youth pastor. From the very beginning of her employment, she made it a priority to get to know me on a deep level, and to find ways to affirm beauty, strength, and goodness in me at a time when I frequently felt like garbage. Her personal stories of hurt, sin, and healing gave me courage and permission to more fully express myself with others and with God. Sindy became my friend and spiritual mentor, a relationship that has endured even after our church dissolved. She provided me with my first introduction to the spiritual disciplines, and through them gave me the tools I needed to begin facing my fears of rejection and abandonment. At an evangelism training course she convinced our youth group to attend, she encouraged and supported me in finding the intercessors whose prayers and guidance finally released me from what had become a six-year addiction to fantasy world escapism. For the first time I recognized how my loneliness, fears, low self-esteem, and addictions were interconnected and had been used by Satan against me. Released from those things by a renewed relationship with Christ, I was freed to love others more fully and openly. My last year of high school, after a one month fast from fictional book reading, God revealed to me that I was to become a psychologist so I could help others attain what I had found in my relationship with God, my family, and my youth group. Since beginning my studies in psychology, one of the most poignant moments in my learning came when I began learning about signs, consequences, and treatments of child abuse. I suddenly remembered for the first time in many years my friend M, and realized with shock that she was probably being sexually abused by someone in her family at the time when I knew her. I think of her often now, wondering where she is and who she has become. God only knows, so I ask him to protect her wherever she is. I cannot. I doubt I'd recognize her if I saw her on the street somewhere. I suppose the danger for anyone in a helping vocation is the risk of mistaking yourself for God in others’ lives. I always have to remind myself that God is the healer, and I am just a sign post for other people to him. I have to be careful to be humbly honest with myself, God, and others about what my limits are, because otherwise I become burned out, depressed, disappointed, and resentful of people’s needs. I need to remember to go to God for my own renewal, and to let go of burdens I carry for myself or others, instead of just trying to hide from them by distracting myself with movies, books, music, day-dreams, or endless internet communications. In fact, as my experiences with broken people have increased and I have learned to rely on God in prayer to heal both them and myself, I have come to see myself as a sort of garbage collector. I have always known I had some kind of gift as a mediator or peace-maker: even during my darkest and most lonely years classmates, friends, and family members would come to me with their problems and hurts because they knew I would listen. I was repeatedly stunned, yet honoured by their trust in me. At the same time, I felt overwhelmed by their needs. I was like a garbage collector who didn't know where the dump was. All my own garbage, as well as the garbage given to me by others, simply got piled on me, rather than recycled or disposed of. I think that is why I used to have so many childhood nightmares of people dying or being seriously harmed and finding myself unable to help them. Now I feel like I'm finally learning how to sort through life’s garbage (my own and others’) to look for treasures to redeem, and to truly dump the rest where it belongs- at the foot of the cross. Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). As I was reflecting on this new identity in Christ on the Friday afternoon before I had to write this paper, I came home and noticed for the first time an inscription on our family’s garbage can lids: “Gracious Living.” I stood on the curb and laughed out loud. God has a great sense of humour. That is the where my spiritual autobiography ended. Now let me show you something cool: this is a link to an organization that builds homes out of trash that are self-sufficient in water, food, and energy. I'm very excited about these buildings because they have the potential to incarnate so many of my integrated passions: reducing waste and pollution, living in close community with others, creatively recycling things into functional art, making organically produced kosher foods readily available and affordable to anyone so we ('we' also includes ridiculously poor people living outside of the obese western world...) are not so dependent on pharmaceutical companies and medical practitioners. Very exciting:) Nolan is excited, too. Actually, he is the one who first showed me the u-tube clips about how the earthship houses are built and function. Thus, I may yet get my wish of living on shared property with my siblings and their (present and) future spouses and children along with mine. Yes, I'm very aware that I'm a geek. And I'm quite all right with that.

Creation, contamination, condemnation, isolation, Grace, restoration, communion, calling, Creation. This is where my spiritual autobiography begins and ends.

Fool Proof

2008-06-12T21:16:00.000-07:00

I Slipped On a Banana Peel I was on my way to pick up my favourite skirt, now altered to not fall off my bum when I walk in it, from my "Aunt M" (an old friend of my parents I mistook for a creepy stalker on facebook and ended up becoming pseudo-counsellor then just friend to, not to be confused with Dorothy's Auntie Em from the Wizard of Oz), when suddenly I slipped on a banana peel. This was strange because I was sitting in the driver's seat of my parked car at the time. The only possible explanation for this ridiculous event is that God has a very classical slap-stick sense of humour, which he has felt the capricious need to unleash on me repeatedly in June. How the banana peel came to be sitting on the floor of my car is this:

After a care-free and mostly guilt-free day of girlishness spent making myself banana-walnut-peanut-butter pancakes for breakfast; going to an eye appointment; bargain-shopping for orange-smelling shampoo and conditioner with the provocative name of "Curly Sexy Hair," lace-trimmed shirts (including another pink one I just couldn't resist. Stupid glowing pink shirts. It's like being Mel Gibson's character in Conspiracy Theory), and a new pair of Merril runners (Woo-hoo!); checking my e-mails; and making supper with my mom, I headed out to pick up Dan, who had moved. Per usual, I missed a turn. Unusually, it didn't disorient me. Per usual, being correctly oriented didn't help, because my short-term memory forgot each street number as I passed it, so I had to pull over and get out of my car to read the street sign and figure out where the deuce I was. Unusually, when I checked the sign, I discovered I was on precisely the street I wanted. Per usual, I went back to my car to start driving again. Unusually, I thought to check the house numbers nearby to determine which direction on the road I ought to be going and discovered that I'd parked right outside Dan's house.

Following a detailed tour of his new dwelling, we went back to my house for dinner, picked up a video of Hogan's Heroes episodes, waved good-bye to my mother, and drove to his parents' house. For the first time ever, our date did not consist of walking around places talking. We were doing an exchange of images- we watched one DVD's worth of Dan's favourite tv show, Neon Genesis Evangelion (which turned out to be an anime science-fiction drama with well-developed Freudian psychological crises and Christian imagery), and one video cassette's worth of one of my favourite tv shows, the 1950-60s comedy sitcom of a WWII POW camp, Hogan's Heroes.

It was an educational experience. For my part, I learned that I've never heard of at least 55% of the movies Dan owns and loves, I've deliberately avoided seeing at least 25% of them, and I owe Tachae, Chasey, and Nolan (in that order) thanks for seeing to my cultural enrichment in the ~10% I have seen. Happily, Neon Genesis Evangelion is every bit as cool as its name implies and I am now an addict. I also learned that Dan's muscular arms and strong hands look equally hot when doing something manly like hooking up electrical cables or something perhaps not so manly like holding his cat and cooing, “Oh Tammy, you're so cute,” after said feline clawed her way up his pant leg. Other odd androgynous resemblances to Nolan keep popping up unexpectedly as well. For example, I could swear I used to own a pair of jeans almost identical to the ones Dan was wearing that day. I decided not to tell him. And unless by some miracle Dan was really, really enraptured by the movies, he learned that I'm a rather flatulent girl. Together, we learned that the whole guy's-arm-slipped-inconspicuously-behind-girl's-head thing when watching a movie is really uncomfortable. At the same moment my neck was forming a decided kink, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Dan's fingers were stretching and contracting repeatedly. “Have you lost all circulation in your arm yet?” I inquired. “Um, yeah,” Dan conceded, taking his arm back and rubbing it with his other hand, “I began losing feeling in my fingers pretty much as soon as I put my arm up.” Huh. I always wondered about that. So we held hands instead.

It was 12:30 by the time we finished the last Hogan's Heroes episode. “Wow. I could totally stay here forever,” Dan helpfully expressed my unspoken thoughts yet again. Fortunately, my more disciplined self rallied to the fore and reminded us that I needed to go home while I was still awake to drive, which in turn reminded Dan that he had to get up in 7 hours for work. So after snitching a banana from his family's fruit basket to pacify my growling stomach, I drove him home. Then we parked in front of his house. Which is when Jen's voice came to haunt me, patiently instructing me to just stare at Dan's lips when I want to initiate kissing. Sigh. I can't do it Jen. I'm sorry. Fictional romances have killed my ability to make serious moves with a straight face. And anyways, Dan is looking everywhere but at me...And he's fidgeting... He abruptly started and halted speaking three times. I sat in my seat and silently laughed at him because I'm really empathetic and I wanted to tell him that he throws me off, too. The only time I need a navigator to get to or from his house is when he's in the car with me. Then Dan apparently collected himself, because he turned to look at me and uttered a coherent sentence: “Faye, I'm going to kiss you.” I blinked. “Oh.” Does he mean now or just eventually? Brain, come back now. “Really?” “Yeah,” he said, still looking at me. “Okay," I stared blankly at the windshield, "Then just let me put the parking brake on first.” I don't know how to kiss. Think fast. Movies. Books. Head should be angled so you don't bump noses, keep lips soft (and partially open??). Then I was out of time because we were both leaning in. It was gross. We tried three times. None could be described as “toe-curling” or “breath-taking.” At least the latter two weren't as gooey as the first. Thank you Jen and Sindy for warning me in advance. As we pulled apart, I lifted an eye-brow and offered a half-smile, “Needs work?” “Maybe more practice?” he shrugged with a similar look of self-deprecating amusement on his face. So we said good-night and I drove away with the Cake lyrics “ Stick shifts and safety belts, Bucket seats have all got to go. When we're driving in the car, it makes my baby seem so far. ..” happily playing across my mind. And that is when my stomach started doing cliched flip-flops, because grossest first kiss in the world notwithstanding, Dan wanted to kiss me! Dan wanted to kiss me! Dan wanted to kiss me! Dan wanted to kiss me! Crap. Where the deuce am I going to get lessons for kissing if Dan has no experience either? Cheer up. You've always crusaded against the double standard of perfect chastity for females and sexual experience for males that dominates your culture. At least you won't have to worry about Dan comparing you to someone else. But I hate doing things I'm not already good at!!! Suck it up:). Seriously, God. I cannot even believe you just used that pun. You enjoyed it. And seriously, Faye. I protected you from premature relationships that would have jaded you. Why complain because I did the same thing for your match? Sorry. You're right. There is something very humbling and honouring about being the first and only chosen. But I really do want to know: how do you improve at something when you have no idea what the end result is supposed to look like? I was so distracted by that challenging question that I totally forgot to remove the banana peel from the floor beneath me where I dropped it after eating its contents because there's no garbage bag in the car. And that is how I ended up slipping on it in my car the next day.

On "Parking"

"Stick Shifts and Safety Belts" from Cake's (1996) Fashion Nugget

Stick shifts and safety belts, Bucket seats have all got to go. When we're driving in the car, It makes my baby seem so far. I need you here with me, Not way over in a bucket seat. I need you to be here with me, Not way over in a bucket seat.

But when we're driving in my Malibu, It's easy to get right next to you. I say, "Baby, scoot over, please." And then she's right there next to me. I need you here with me, Not way over in a bucket seat. I need you to be here with me, Not way over in a bucket seat.

Well a lot of good cars are Japanese. But when we're driving far, I need my baby, I need my baby next to me.

Well, stick shifts and safety belts, Bucket seats have all got to go. When we're driving in the car, It makes my baby seem so far. I need you here with me, Not way over in a bucket seat. I need you to be here with me, Not way over in a bucket seat.

Now, just to confuse you all, I'm going to go back in time before the banana peel incident, to the day a bird pooped on me. I didn't realize it had happened; if I had, I probably would have showered and then selected a different coat and bag for my sushi date with Dan that evening. As it was, I was flicking some mystery white substance that had dried on my bag and coat collar off with my fingers when we parked on a residential street across the Bow River from Prince's Island Park. Oh, crap. Literally, I realized. "Hey, I just figured out what this weird white stuff on my coat and bag is!" I told Dan conversationally as we exited his car. And as we pleasantly debated the best mathematical equation for determining the probability of being pooped on by a bird in one's life time, Dan sweetly took my hand for the walk across the river and through down-town to the Sushi place he'd decided on. It was especially sweet because it was the same hand he'd seen flicking bird poop off of my bag and coat a minute earlier. Well, now I know that he has no germ phobias...

Gradually our conversation topics conformed to societal norms, such as casual plans for the coming week. "Oh yeah, and before I forget," I added congenially, then body-checked Dan into a convenient patch of grass. After he caught his balance and returned to my side, looking slightly bewildered, I finished, "that's for making me read Aldous Huxley." He started laughing, "Um, was there something in particular that you didn't like?" So after a brief rant on Aldous Huxley's frequent use of obscure religious, literary, and historical art references and terminology, I admitted the real reason I body checked him was just to flirt, because mild physical violence is how I and my siblings express affection. "Man, I can't wait to tell my friends that you body checked me over Aldous Huxley!" Dan exclaimed enthusiastically.

After an interesting hour of eating seafoods I had never tried before (let alone tried raw) with my head tipped sideways because I don't really know how to use chopsticks all that proficiently, interspersed with an embarrassing number of visits to the washroom because I have a bladder the size of a pea (no pun unintended), Dan and I headed out for our customary walk. This time we picked the river pathway. As it turns out, the river path turns out from the Stampede grounds following the Elbow River, and that is the path we chose to follow.

Across from the Stampede grounds and on the other side of the Elbow is a very tall and steep hill, with some very large houses built on the top that are probably owned by some very rich people. There's also a fenced look-out point, and some wishful thinking enabled me to see a faint path through the grass and shrubs on the hill up towards it. As I was coming to expect, Dan was game to explore. We began to hike. At one point, our faint path branched to the right and left, and I lead the way to the left. Since that lead us to the occupied (and cleverly hidden) campsite of three homeless persons, we turned around and took the right path, which involved tromping through large patches of juniperous horizontalis. When we were about 3/4 of the way up, Dan suggested we sit down. I was dubious, since the ground was damp everywhere, but Dan found us a nice dry spot on a juniper shrub and even held my hand so I wouldn't slide down the near-vertical slope of the hill while we watched the sun set on the Stampede grounds and down-town Calgary.

"So I read your narrative," Dan stated after a comfortable silence. Poor Dan. We had exchanged life narratives the date previous at my request. For those of you who are not psychology geeks, a life narrative is a collection of stories a person gives about key events in their life, which can be analyzed for major themes that define the person's personality. In dating, I suppose it's something of a cheat sheet for discovering in short order who someone is, where they are coming from, and how they see the world. I don't know why, but it never really occurred to me until after I began reading Dan's narrative that exchanging life narratives meant that Dan would also be seeing my narrative. Mine is easily twice as long as his, in both analysis and actual narrative length. I wrote mine while I was depressed and in the midst of several courses that required pervasive self-reflection. Dan wrote his when he was rushed for time and trying desperately just to get his course work done so he could pass. He's also a guy and therefore doesn't routinely write novels or spout lengthy sonnets about his feelings the way I very routinely do. Thus, while Dan's narrative actually provoked more questions than it really answered, I suspected mine had probably provided more information and emotion than Dan was prepared to swim in. Frick.

"It was very..." and then there was a very long pause while Dan searched for a tactful but adequate description of his reaction. "Long?" I helpfully suggested. "Emotional," Dan decided. Um, no kidding. And then I felt this compelling need to start making complex excuses for both narrative characteristics. Have I mentioned my recent discovery that I babble when I'm nervous? Dan listened attentively anyway. So attentively, in fact, that he repeatedly ignored incoming calls on his cell phone, which was pretty funny because his phone was in his jeans pocket and he kept trying to turn it off inside his pocket with his opposite hand while it vibrated away beneath our romantically interlocked hands. What the heck is this? Of the two of us, Dan's the one who's never shown his narrative to another soul. I've shown mine to at least four other people since I wrote it but I'm the one running off on homeless persons' trails to avoid facing his opinion. Get a spine, Faye. I braced myself for whatever critical, analytical, philosophical, or pharmacological thoughts Dan had about my life story. "Okay, so what did you actually think about it?"

Dan looked intently at my face. I looked away towards the city lights. (I don't have that much spine.) "You're beautiful." Oh. Didn't see that coming. Think fast. Disagreeing with people's assessments of my appearance always just drags out my being in the spotlight. Be positive and graceful. "Um, thanks!" I said brightly, still not looking at him. But Dan wasn't going to let the conversation slide that easily: "I didn't just say that for tonight, either. I've thought that for a long time." What do you say to that? So we sat and looked out on the city lights in comfortable silence until I started shivering and had to suggest we continue our scramble up the hill and over the fence. After passing a likely very rich man who likely lives in one of the big expensive houses and was pretending we were not climbing over the fence he was looking out from, we headed back towards Dan's car.

It was too cold for exposed fingers so we had to give up holding hands for the shelter of our pockets. I felt kind of vexed with the separation and wished I wasn't so damn self-conscious because it seemed like the ideal opportunity to try out linking arms. Lucky for me, Dan is trained in Psychology so he can read other peoples' thoughts: "Here," he said, linking our arms so our hands could remain happily in our pockets. Wow. This is really personal. And safe-feeling. And comforting. Why is it comforting? Comfort is something you seek out when you're hurt or scared. I'm not either of those things...am I? In retrospect, linking arms is probably comforting for the same reason that it makes turning corners challenging: it pulls you snugly into another person's side (which, unless they are either dead or suffering from severe hypothermia, is probably warm and at least slightly softer than a 2X4 of wood). In Child Development class we learned that infants and young children who sleep with and are carried around by their parents tend to be more easily soothed when upset. Apparently, there's just something about being a human that craves warmth and contact. We were still in that synchronized position when we reached the Lions Gate Bridge, where a city bus dropped off a rider who began walking towards us: "Hey, do you guys know where there's a stair case down to Memorial?" Dan and I were pretty sure there was one in the direction we were heading, so we invited him to walk with us...down a dark, secluded, tree-lined pathway. As we entered the first shadow, our new acquaintance suddenly spun to face us and rapidly fired out: "Just so you know, my liver's not worth shit! I drink waaaay too much so in case you were thinking of throwing me down the hill or something- I know organ harvesting is profitable and stuff and you can never tell..." Yes, yes you do drink too much. And possibly you need to cut down on your television watching as well... But all we actually said was that there was a staircase to Memorial directly in line with the pedestrian bridge across the Bow to Prince's Island Park. He seemed equally relieved by both sight of the stairway and the fact that Dan and I left him for another path.

As we got closer to Dan's car, we began passing couples making out along the pathway or in their parked cars (including a few limos) with increasing frequency. Definitely grad season, commented the analytical-sociological side of my brain. Oh crap. We're totally parked in a major "parking" spot. Was Dan hoping to "park"? I'm never going to be able to keep a straight face!!! mimzied the more neurotic side of my brain. Just ask, suggested the practical part of my brain. "So, um, did you intend to park in a popular make-out point, or was it just kind of a fluke?" I inquired casually. Dan ran his unoccupied hand through his hair and looked around, "Ah, I was thinking it looked kind of busy around here. But, no, I just thought it'd have a nice view at night. I guess I should have known..." Then we arrived at Dan's car. As I buckled myself in, Dan turned the engine. The engine didn't turn. His face freezing, Dan slowly turned to look at me: "Oh. no. The. car. won't. start."

Violence is Cute

"Wait, wait, wait," interrupted Lisa, to whom I was relating the body-checking portion of my "On Parking" anecdote while we ate lunch in a Vietnamese restaurant near her work, "That actually works? Guys like being beaten on?" "Um, yes. It works as a flirtation tool around guys, and a fast bonding technique with little boys," I informed her, then reflected, "Amy taught me that."

I beat on Dan a lot. He seems to enjoy it. Which I suppose is kind of weird and kinky, since that's what sadomasochism couples get turned on by. Nevertheless, it has become an important aspect of our relationship. No, not sadomasochism, respect. I once asked Dan for three memories that represent who his mother is to him. One was a general memory: Dan said that his mother taught him to have respect for women. I considered asking him to describe what 'respect' meant to him. Considered, and then firmly rejected the question. It's pointless, really. Dan demonstrates his definition of respect, for himself and for others. For example, just moments before I asked the mom-question, I spontaneously decided it'd be a good time to body-check Dan towards the not-so-sparkling waters of the Chestermere canal. However, Dan was anticipating it this time and dodged, so I ended up spinning in a circle and falling over. Once down, I decided not to get up, preferring instead to gather my shreds of dignity around me by sitting up straight and staring out at the water. Dan sat down beside me and also looked towards the water, "There's a word for this, but I can't think of what it is." Humiliation? "Irony?" I suggested. "That's probably it," Dan agreed congenially. "You want to know the really ironic part?" "What's that?" "I injured my thumb doing that." Dan started laughing; "How is that even possible?" "I don't know," I shrugged, giving in to a grin, "It's not even the thumb on the side of my body I checked you with." "Which thumb was it?" "This one," I told him, holding it up as a still greater flood of irony hit me, because I knew what was coming before it came. "Poor thumb," empathized Dan, taking it in his hand to examine, then gently massage. Sigh. Poor ego.

Several weeks later, Dan and I were sitting alone in my friend Jen's kitchen at the end of a night of couples' dinner and games (Get your minds out of the gutter- we were playing Taboo. Oh wait, that sounds just as bad...dang nam it). At length, I decided to grow a backbone again and informed Dan that Jen was going to take an inordinate amount of time kissing her boyfriend good-night so we would also have time to "practice." "Practice what?" Dan asked, confused at first. But he's a pretty clever lad, so a minute or two later we were on our feet going at 'er. I felt a bit like an irritating five year old on a road trip with her parents: Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Well, good try, Dan. "Good try?!" Crap! Did I say that out loud?!! "Um, I meant, 'That was good.' Good job, Dan!" Dan didn't look entirely convinced. Dang Freudian slips. Poor Dan's ego.

And the moral of these stories is that Dan shows his respect for my feminine pride by courteously not paying attention to my violent clumsiness and I show my respect for Dan's masculinity by testing it repeatedly with the expectation that I won't break it, despite my clumsiness. God, this relationship is fool proof. Big, glowing, neon signs...

Revenge of the Flirtation Geru

2008-05-29T12:11:00.000-07:00

I said I couldn't imagine real living and so I haven't. I just didn't realize how difficult it would be to find words to describe to someone else (or even to myself) what my life looks like now that I have one. So, at the risk of starting a whole new controversy, I'm going to call it Sensual Joy. Soooo...where to start? I went on a spiritual retreat the first weekend in May with my church Young Adult group. I went because I would like to get to know them all better, and because I love any opportunity to be outside, in or near the mountains. My highlight of the weekend was playing Mission Impossible, which surprised me because I've never liked that game. Maybe I've just always played it with too many people before, or maybe I was just given a new attitude towards it this time. Whatever the reason, IT WAS A BLAST. I pretended to be a log until I couldn't breathe; I crawled on my hands and knees through rocks, branches, moss, and grass. I ducked, darted, leaped, and sprinted. I plotted confusing schemes with team mates. I felt alive. For many of the young adults, the speaker was the highlight. She was a spiritual director/professor at Rocky Mountain College, and nearly everything she had to say was a repeat of what I have learned from courses taken with Charles Nienkirchen at Ambrose. I suspect they steal each other's lines, one of the most infamous being, "STOP DOING DEVOTIONS!" (They both emphasize a life of prayer, in many different forms, rather than a slotted time for some narrow tradition). I was really glad they brought her, but more because it meant I didn't have to teach what she had to say to them than because I felt I learned anything from her. Except. She had this one suggestion that entirely contradicted what my own spirituality professor had taught. The contradictory suggestion really irked me, although I acknowledged her reasons for making it seemed sound. She said, "Don't worry about getting into a daily routine for bible study and prayer. The same pattern doesn't work for everyone, and the same person will find he or she needs to switch things up according to new life situations. You'll only get bored if you keep things the same." Charles had always recommended the opposite: keep a daily prayer routine with enough flexibility in it that the Spirit can speak but with enough structure that you're not killing yourself trying to fill space with originality on more normal days. We did a group lectio divina at the end of her session. It was on John 21:1-13, when Jesus causes Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, and 2 other disciples to catch more fish than a single boat could carry after an entirely unsuccessful night. (This is after Jesus was crucified.) We were all asked what stood out most to us and why. I was somewhat embarrassed to give the cliched answer that verse 7, about "diving in" and "jumping out of the boat," stood out most for me. But I couldn't help it. Seven is the verse in which Peter jumps out of the boat fully clothed to swim to see Jesus on the shore because he's SO excited. I understood Peter's delight- I'd seen it demonstrated in all its silly exuberance by Nolan on numerous occasions (Side note: Congratulations Nolan and Sherry! I hope Sherry's bum is bringing you both every bit as much joy as Nolan anticipated in his Song-of-Solomonesque wedding vows). But I also understood that if I had been in his place, I would have done what the other disciples did- stayed in the boat and rowed in with the giant catch. I would have felt torn about the decision- responsibility to my fellow fishers and economic pragmaticity versus immediate gratification for an irreplaceable soul-connection. What are you saying, God? What water are you wanting me to jump into alone to seek Joy? I should have been able to put two and two together. I'd been asking God for several years if he could bring me a Nolanesque-style boyfriend. I had spent enough time with anxious and neurotic friends, family members, aquaintances, and strangers to know that I needed someone very different for a romance- someone adventurous, fun, out-doorsy, and at peace with himself and God so I wouldn't have to worry that he only liked me because he thought I could heal him or give him an identity. Someone who didn't need me, who I wouldn't worry about crushing. Someone not also going into a counselling-type occupation who would get sucked as dry as I do. (Those marriages end in divorce about 80-90% of the time.) His answer to me (and everyone else who decided it was their duty to ask God for a husband for me) was always, "Wait." Specifically, he told me I would get to finish my 4-year degree first. I was happy with that. Some of my friends got married while they were still in the midst of their studies and they were some of the most stressed out students I knew. Plus, my spiritual mentor/friend Sindy had told me back in High School that my amazing superpower to remain invisible to the opposite sex was actually a protection from God until I was ready for the person he had for me. Consequently, I'd mostly not bothered taking up the habit of man-hunting. I don't have the patience or acting skills to present myself as anything apart from what I am, and what I am is darn awkward around guys I like or whom I think like me. Throughout college, my life became simple and full. I attended classes and did school work for a major in which females out-numbered males about 3:1. I spent my spare time with close girl friends, immediate family members, and took up work and volunteering positions separate from the public and dominated by female coworkers. My church young adult group was filled exclusively with couples and other women. I wrote a psychology paper about why my parents were despairing of ever having grandchildren. If I was going to meet someone, it would be a miracle of God. That was fine with me: to throw in still more transportation cliches, it meant that if there was ever to be a turn off from my highway of content singleness, it would have several giant, glowing, coloured neon signs to give me direction. So, when one of my more propheticish friends told me this winter she'd been asking God about a husband for me again, I wasn't worried. I sat back in my arm-chair with a raised brow, waiting comfortably for the inevitable, "He said you're not old enough" or "You're not ready yet" or "There's still things he wants you to experience alone with him first" or "Not yet." "He said that you'll be married or at least know who you're marrying before you go on to grad studies." "What?!" I had a sudden Sarah moment of laughing disbelief. I planned to be entering grad studies in two years, possibly on another continent. Although the possibility of meeting someone in grad school had occurred to me, being married or engaged before then had definitely not. "Also, I was given the distinct impression it's someone you already know," she continued. "WHAT?!" Who the deuce could it be?! I don't have any close guy-friends, and most of the casual ones who have so bravely asked me out in the past I turned down indefinitely. After talking out my list of possibilities with my friend, I loosely narrowed down my options to about 5, all of whom were long shots. This sent me into an extremely unhelpful cycle of obsessive thought for two weeks afterwards, in the midst of the heaviest school work load I'd ever had. When one of the final five contestants stunned me with a premature apology for not asking me out, I decided it was time to ask for help. I couldn't concentrate on my school work and I desperately needed to. I e-mailed my brother (for a solid masculine perspective), and three wise friends (who have known me for a long time) to ask for prayer and some practical advice. Their answers were variations of the same thing: (1) This is not important for you right now. Go do your homework. And (2) Trust your own ability to talk to and hear from your Heavenly Father. Is this what your heart wants? And thanks to their prayers to our Heavenly Father, the swirling thoughts ceased and I got my work done. The Premature Final Five was later eliminated by his own choosing, much to my relief. Because though I felt really guilty for thinking it, in case God wanted me to learn patience or teaching skills or something, my heart's response was Oh God, no. And so, two months later (the week before the retreat), as I attended a Behavioural Science graduation pot-luck dinner my friends had convinced me to go to despite my technical non-graduating status (I'm missing one class), I found myself chatting pleasantly with small groups of my equally burned-out but still optimistic comrades... including Dan. To my surprise, we had a lot in common. And by a lot, I mean more than just a year of shared misery completing (and avoiding) independent psychology research projects required for entry into graduate programs. Toward the end of the evening, I mildly thought it'd be cool if we kept in touch via e-mail or something, but forgot to ask what his e-mail was. Dan wasn't on my list of pre-meditated possibilites, after all. Fortunately, we just happened to be the last two people to leave my pot-luck hosting professor's house. Then Dan also just happened to walk me to my car. Weird. This is what guys in romantic comedies do to ask girls out. And gave me his number; "We should go walking some time." I could hear my sister Melanie's voice in my head, telling me that she and Joe figured they really started dating the day she asked him to go for a walk with her, because guys and girls who are "just friends" just don't do that. Whatever. I go on walks with anyone non-creepy who's willing. He probably just asked because he's going through college-people withdrawl and he knows we both like walking. I got in my car and proceeded to drive home, getting lost again only once. Then, Waaait a second...And then I nearly crashed. And that is how I accidentally began dating. It's dangerous business, Frodo, walking outside your door. You never know where your feet might take you... Several years ago, Nolan introduced me to a book called The Five Love Languages, by a counselling psychologist named Gary Chapman. I, in turn, introduced the book to Melanie and Valerie (as well as some other people, but I won't name them all). Chapman's premise is fairly simple: there are more or less 5 major languages of love. Each of us favours one or two of these particular languages to express and receive love. Recognizing your own love language, as well as the prefered love language(s) of people around you, can be highly beneficial in building positive familial, romantic, or friendship ties. The five are, if my memory serves me correctly, (1) words of encouragement, (2) physical touch, (3) acts of service, (4) quality time, and (5) gifts. Later in my scholastic studies, I encountered a similar idea expressed through something called a "Love Map" hypothesis of liking, which emphasizes that the unique features and interactions that turn each individual on is determined mostly by early childhood family experiences/environment. I had a really difficult time figuring out which of Chapman's languages was mine. I love giving people well-thought out gifts. I put a lot of time, effort, and thought into creating elaborate cards, wrappings, and item-combinations for people I love. I really hate receiving poorly thought-out gifts from other people. Still, if gift making/shopping was keeping someone from hanging out with me, I would be much happier without the presents and with the presence. On another hand, acts of service are really important to my family, and I am no different. Family members or close friends who don't pull their own weight and pitch in to do things like make meals, clean, drive siblings to various extra-curricular events, do the laundry, etc. are resented. However, I resent doing those things for other people if I'm doing them alone and my efforts go un-noticed, which might suggest I'm a words-of-encouragement kind of person, except that I really hate direct or public praise and I think flowery encouragements from cards, sermons, etc are tedious to bear. Hense, I deduced I must be a quality-time kind of girl, specializing in meaningful conversations. I never considered the physical love language a possibility for me. That was my sister Jeana's language. Nolan and I were also very preoccupied with a counselling psychologist called Kevin Leman for a while. Leman writes books about birth order effects on personality (which apparently is known as the Family Constellation theory among Psychology academia). I even bought one of his books: The Birth Order Connection, which basically gives you a list of things you should have in common with your romantic partner and a list of things you and your romantic partner should contrast in. It's pretty sage advice. Leman vehemently warns against people of the same birth order placement hooking up- personalities tend to be too similar to allow for complementarity and compensation for each other's strengths and weaknesses. According to his descriptions, I am counted as a first born, since I'm the oldest daughter in a non-gender role stereotyping family. I decided early on that I needed to find myself a youngest born stud so I can remember to have fun and not kill myself when therapy with clients doesn't go the way I want it to. And yet... Flying home from my grandmother's funeral this spring between my brothers, I found myself happily engaged in alternately tickling Chasey in the side until he screamed and finally retaliated and leaning into Nolan as he asked my opinion on how our various family members express and experience various basic emotions. We came to the consensus that among siblings, we express affection as physical contact, most often tickling. I was reminded suddenly of Morrie, filled with delight over any positive physical touch (Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie). On our first un-date, I discovered that Dan is a first born. Crap, God. How's this going to work? You know, you asked me for someone like your older brother. Nolan's the first born in your family. Yeah, but Nolan's odd, even for our family. Trust me. I asked Dan how he thought being the oldest sibling had affected him. "I was always finding ways to push the boundaries, got in trouble a lot." That's how Nolan describes his childhood... I heard God laugh. A half hour before I was supposed to be leaving for the Young Adults Retreat, Dan called me. I was a little surprised, given that he'd already invited me out the first time and it probably should have been my responsibility to follow that up with a reciprocal offer of time, but I'd chickened out. He asked me what I was doing that evening so I told him about the retreat. He then told me that he was also going camping that weekend, albeit later. He was going back-packing with a best friend in the Waipourous. God, really? Really, he likes hiking and back-packing? It was a good thing I'd been tenting in Waipourous once, because that gave me something to work with for conversation while my brain and heart recovered. Then the conversation came to it's logical end and Dan fell silent. Working hard to quell nervousness, I hurriedly invited him to come along to my little brother's rock show later that month. He gamely agreed, then fell into silence again and I was ready to bludgeon him for the awkward silence because he'd called me, so the onus was on him to say why he'd called and not leave me hanging. God, how could you do this to me?! This is why first borns shouldn't date each other. Two quiet people can't keep conversations going! God was silent, too. Come on Faye, use your DC conversation skills. Ask him a clarifying question. "So, just to verify, were you calling to invite me along camping or just to chat?" GAAAAAAA!!! Where did my brain go? How could it desert my mouth at a time like this?! He asked at the beginning what you were doing this evening! You killed his invitation with your prior plans, idiot. Dan gave a very surprised and nervous laugh. I might have begun banging my head against the wall at that point, but he would have heard it. Believe it or not, we arranged to go for a second walk anyway. The things I loved most about our family's roadtrip to BC for Nolan's wedding? Falling asleep at night piled on and under and between my sisters and cousin, Heather; absorbing the warm sunshine into my skin, feeling comforted by the feel and sound of a gentle breeze running through the garden of the house we stayed in, laying in dew-covered grass, being drenched by 4 degree celcius waves while Whitewater Rafting with Heather; finally seeing Nolan and getting a big, enthusiatic hug from him before he dissapeared with his betrothed again; punching Chasey to make him yelp when he said impertinent or cheeky things. I almost felt guilty for failing to either journal or read my bible more than once the entire 4 days we were gone. Almost. On our second un-date, I asked Dan where he wanted to travel to just for the heck of it and where he'd go for a purpose, what the purpose would be, and why. Dan is a psych major, too. This makes things tricky sometimes, because not only does he answer my questions with excellent self-reflection, but he directs them back at me, waits for a real answer, and asks probing questions of his own. This means I have to be careful not to ask questions I'm not ready to answer. I had an answer. When I described my intent to pilgrimage to Lac Ste. Anne next summer, Dan asked if he could be one of the people to come with me. I was a little bit stunned. Mainly because he was sincere. Many people have been supportive of my going, but not even my best friends have offered to come along. God burst his shirt, he was laughing so hard. As I dropped my sister Samantha off for her 1 hour piano lesson, the sky began to pour in earnest. Conveniently enough, the song "Desert Storm" by DaRue began to play on the radio (i.e. "I dream of rain, e-lay-e-a-lay..."). I was delighted. When the song finished, I got out of the car and walked through the rain for an hour. Actually, I did more than walk. I spontaneously ran up and down hills, jumped over road medians, climbed all over dripping, deserted children's playgrounds, and touched every last dripping wet tree, bush, and shrubbery within reach of the side-walk. I felt sorry for the people I could see sitting inside their dry houses playing video games or watching tv. I thought of The Big Fish scene where the Big Fish is sitting in a bath-tub fully clothed and tells his puzzled wife, "I felt all dried out." I felt like crying. Laughing. Refreshed. I know, you're always throwing kisses from the sky. Well tonight I caught one...(Blindside, "Shekina," About a Burning Fire). Remembering my good professor Nienkirchen's caution to understand and absorb rare super-natural moments rather than become addicted to always feeling super-natural, I praised God for the delirious hour and figured that would be the end of the wordless moments. Less than a week later, I found myself walking in the golden light of the evening, overpowered once again by the rich colours and textures of the natural world displayed in suburbian gardens and yards. And what is this? A cul-de-sac I've never explored before? How is this possible? I felt compelled to explore. A path lead to a mirroring cul-de-sac, also completely unfamiliar to me. And then I saw it. The most beautiful house in the world. Actually, I have no idea what the house looked like. It was the yard and garage door that had me spell-bound. It was like seeing a summer-filled piece of my soul incarnated. The garage door had a flower-covered mountainside hand-painted in bright red, orange, yellow, and sky blue on it. To the right, a pine hedge lined either side of neat cement steps leading to a rich brown wooden door. Intermingled in the hedge were black iron stakes with reflective silver spheres on their tips. To the left of the stair case were two large pine trees, whose lowest branches had been trimmed off. Dangling from innumerable branches was a mesmerizing collection of things that sparkled, shone, twirled, twisted, spun, and twinkled in the wind. There was even a lop-sided 3-D heart. Why wouldn't you have a lop-sided shiny heart danging from a pine tree?! I thought, dazed in euphoria. Later on the same walk, I discovered the epitome of what my friend Jen might call "useless but fun." It was a 2 meter tall metal stake with two children's bicycle wheels attached and rotating on a horizontal axle at the top. Attached to the wheels were a series of 2 litre pop bottles, cut into scoop shapes and spray painted in silver, black, yellow, red, green, and blue. The wheels, of course, ran in the wind whenever the scoops caught it. I don't know how to explain how very, very happy I was that it existed. I don't want to tell you how long it took me to find my way back to that obscure location the next day to take a photo. No, I do not have a job yet. Meanwhile, un-date number four came to it's conclusion in my parked car out-side Dan's house. I said we were parked, not "parking," thank you very much. Really, I could no longer call it an un-date, since when Dan had called to re-book it earlier that week he had specifically called it a date. He'd re-booked in order to deal with several deaths in his family. I really hadn't known what to do to be supportive (which is embarrassing, given that I'd already dealt with the same thing a few months earlier), so I just stayed out of the way. I didn't even have a card to give him when I showed up at his house a few days after the funeral. I hadn't known what to say. So I just asked how he and his family were doing. They were fine. They'd bonded closer together in their grief, were finding the closure they needed. Precisely how my family had reacted. He didn't need me to comfort him. God had already done it. I don't know why I was surprised by that. [God rolls his eyes]. And after watching Dan and my little brother hit it off famously at my brother's band performance, I had to admit, God, I like Dan. However, this was not especially helpful thinking while we sat in my car and I tried hard not to fidget. My Flirtation Geru had tried very hard over the phone earlier that day to give me tips on how to start the momentous courtship ritual of hand-holding. We had already determined that I was too much of a coward to ask directly or to simply take his hand. Her first suggestion was for me to pretend to have difficulty while walking over difficult terrain so I could ask for his help. "Jen," I patiently explained, "that's ridiculous. We've already walked over plenty of rough terrain together. He knows I'm perfectly capable of walking on my own." "All the better," she said smugly, "then he'll know why you're pretending." I refused. I'm not coy. Pretending to be so just seemed like a violation of our unspecified relationship. "All right," she amended, "why don't you just be your honest self and tell him about your flirtation lessons? Then he'll figure it out indirectly." Kill me now. Her third plan was for me to simply link my arm with his; "Faye, you present yourself very confidently and independantly. You're going to have to let him know it's okay to touch you, or he won't. No guy would dare. Linking arms is dignified but clear in it's meaning." I decided to aim for plan C. I failed. And given that we were walking through a graveyard at night and the ground was decidedly uneven and in some parts rocky and slippery, Plan C probably would have been especially appropriate. As I drove Dan home, listening to a cassette tape of ABBA he discovered in the car, I kept envisioning Jen's future reprisals for botching such a simple plan. So we sat in the car, exchanged "That was fun, let's hang out again soon"s, booked our next date for before Dan left for a psychology research conference (Dan loves the sense and perception physiological side of psychology). Then we hit silence. He's just staring at me. He has beautiful eyes. What am I supposed to be doing? Jen's going to kill me. I started babbling. I never realized before that moment that I babble when I'm nervous. I reached for the first thing that came to mind: Jen. Our next date was set for the day I was babysitting her children. "Jen is my flirtation geru." AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH! ABORT, Faye, ABORT!!!! There's no way to go but down with a conversation starter like that and Dan is, after all, a psych major. He wasn't thrown off track at all by my additional herring bone babble. "But what was the pretending to fall supposed to accomplish?" What else could I say but the truth? "Um, hand-holding, believe it or not." I laughed to make it more casual, wishing with all my heart I had never read Nora Roberts' Irish Thoroughbred novel with Tachae in our teens..."We need to find some other way for you to expend all that energy..." Damned belated teenage hormones. Dan continued watching me steadily. Cornered, I shrugged, helpless. Dan raised one eyebrow, then said, "Faye, hand-holding is very simple." Darn he has a soothing, deep voice. Then he offered me his hand, palm up. I stared at it. Nope. There's no hope for the recovery of your pride, Faye. I took his hand and beamed. He wished me a good night, walked into his home, and I began driving towards mine. I almost twisted the steering wheel off, and as I willfully made my hands relax, I wished I had not watched the Kiera Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice with my sisters over... and over... and over again. Little natives danced in my head chanting, "Populated self. Populated self." Hey! That was Plan B! And I want you all to know that it works. Date five, after Jen introduced herself to Dan as my flirtation geru at dinner then innocently reminded me that Weaselhead Park was exceptionally close-by, and after some steep downward climbing, marsh-tromping, and companionable bushwacking, we accidentally ended up on a real path. Was that brush of fingers accidental or intentional? Oh. Definitely intentional. I beamed. We were holding hands. We were now officially dating. And as it turns out, psychology training was making Dan over-think his moves as well. Figures. So, an afternoon and evening walk through a giant field near the airport; a theatre performance, walk around down-town, and drinks and appetizers at Moxies; a walk around his neighbourhood and Nosehill park; my little brother's punk rock performance and a night walk through a graveyard; and dinner with Jen and her kids and a bush-wacking/marshy walk through Weaselhead Park later, I feel kind of pressured to admit I have a boyfriend or else take Melanie's place for Self-Denial Cutie. I might have to change the 'single' status on my rarely-used facebook account. Whoa, now. This is getting serious... So here's the thing, God: I'm still awkward. I empathize strongly with Lisa O'Malley's character in Dee Henderson's The Truth Seeker when she bemoans the fact that she has the childish habit of holding her heart hidden in a jar, then suddenly handing it all over at once with a "Here." Some discernment for how to proceed would be nice. You'll get it as you need it and ask for it. Besides, if you're going to hand your heart over to someone, at least Dan has nice hands...:) Oh...my... Starry-eyed surprise:)

Conversations

2008-04-22T16:34:00.000-07:00

Social psychologist Kenneth Gergen described the citizens of present western civilization as having "populated selves." That is, no individual is really an individual, but more of an intersection, built of the hundreds and thousands of communicative interactions each person has with the people they encounter directly and indirectly. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. There are so many voices running around my head. My very last Spaces of the Heart class with Nienkirchen last Tuesday was on journaling. Although he acknowledged that the golden rule of journaling is that however you are doing it is the right way, Nienkirchen offered one suggestion I found intriguing. He asked us to consider making a list of people and experiences to have dialogues with, including famous or influential people (dead or alive), people close to you, strangers, your body, the environment, God. He didn't mean it in a pantheistic or spiritual medium kind of way, but more in the historical fiction or poetic writer's prerogative sort of way, where you listen to what those people or experiences have said or are saying, and you imagine, based on the evidence, what they would say to you if you took them out for a Thursday afternoon chat in a relatively empty coffee-shop for a few hours. Since that class, I have had more than 19 group and one-on-one conversations with God, strangers, fictional book characters, co-workers, friends, and family members. And those 19 were just the really significant ones I remembered to write down. Consequently, I'm a bit peopled-out, so I'm sipping a popular legal stimulant while hiding out at my mostly-vacant school until one of the building security guards comes to throw me out when they're locking up. Read life is hard. I know I need to start rebuilding my relationships with my church young adult group. I know they have bible study on Tuesday nights. I just don't want to go tonight. I don't know what to say, and I still haven't really processed any of the other conversations I've already had last week and this week. I didn't know what to say in most of those conversations either, so mostly I just listened to stories. Listening is good. I wish I did it even more often. For example, listening would have been smart on Friday afternoon, after my DC shift, when I sat down on the train to go home. Although the train was almost entirely empty, a young man came and sat down beside me, thus defying one of those unspoken social taboos about personal space on city transit I've come to notice with keen interest through my studies in sociology. Then he immediately broke still another unspoken social taboo, by turning to me and asking "Do you think I need to lose weight?" Looking up from the book I had begun reading, I searched his face, wondering if this was a joke. He was not kidding. Nobody talks to complete strangers about personal health issues unless the stranger is a health professional or the person talking is requesting immediate assistance for some kind of medical emergency like a heart attack, allergic reaction, or a stabbing. Grasping my DC Rogerian training like a shield, I politely told him, "I don't know. That's probably something you'd want to discuss with a doctor." Then we briefly discussed some of the pros and cons of relying on the BMI for indication of health problems. When that came full circle to his confirming that he should talk to his doctor about it, I decided the conversation was done and I resolutely began reading again. But I was bothered. What was behind that conversation? What was he really looking for? Was he so desperate for validation and affirmation as a human being that he was seeking attention from complete strangers for trivial personal issues? In addition, that verse about being conscientious to entertain strangers because you may be hosting angels unawares kept intruding into my determined reading. Ask him about himself. The command was no more than a whisper. I heard it, I ignored it, I regret it. I also regretted not listening on Sunday night. I was sleeping over at a friend's house after helping to child-wrangle at a baking-themed birthday party that afternoon. Everything was going smoothly until the un-birthday child realized his sibling would be allowed to stay up late to watch a movie with a friend since the birthday child had no school Monday, while the Unfortunate had to go to bed at the usual time and attend school as usual the next day. After we had listened to precisely 4 door slams, countless "IT'S NOT FAIR!" roars, and the sound of something heavy hitting the floor for the sixth time, I offered to go talk to him. Unperturbed by the dissapointed child's angry screams for me to go away, I inquired with mild interest what he'd been using to make all the noise. Unable to entirely hide his assauged pride, he moodily informed me that the heavy falling object had been a u-bar bike lock. They bounce? Who would have known? I thought absently. It did not take long to realize that discussing the problem logically was not going to help, so I utilized the eternal boy-wisdom of Amy instead: I stole the child's comforter and threw it at him. With vengeance, he threw it back. I caught it and hucked it at him again. By the third round, he was finding it difficult to hide his grin. He loves being wrestled with. Time for the kill. I began climbing the ladder to his bunk. He attempted to knock me off by smothering me in his comforter, as I had expected. I pushed my way up and flipped the comforter over him, then tickled him until he couldn't breathe. I asked if he'd like to read a book with me before bed. He eagerly agreed and raced off to find his favourite book, Star Wars III. Victory is mine, I thought smugly. Just call me 'Cool Aunt Faye'. A snack and two chapters later, he was ready to go to sleep. That is, he was ready until he remembered that his ear infection needed cleaning and helpfully went to remind his sibling of the same thing. Unfortunately, seeing his sibling still up watching a movie reminded him of his anger with full force, and within five minutes he was screaming, yelling, and throwing things with a passion that made the earlier storm seem tame. His mother's patient explanations and stern admonition to stop only intensified his rage, and he began the all-too-familiar refrain, "I HATE YOU, MOMMY! I HATE YOU!" Closing his door, she went to her room to cry. Deja vu, in a repeating nightmare, oppressive way. [Let me clear any misconceptions this picture might arouse. My friend is not a wimp. Neither is she an overly indulgent, neglectful, or abusive parent. She's just a single parent who happens to have a very troubled and difficult child with whom normal child-disciplinary methods do not work, and the burden leaves her very tired, discouraged, and defeated sometimes.] I felt torn. My friend needed comfort and encouragement. Her son needed to be calmed. Her other child, I knew, was feeling worried and scared again. Waiting it out wasn't going to work. My friend's son has demonstrated the unnatural ability to maintain that level of rage for hours. I knew what I should do. My friend had already told me the most effective way to deal with these situations. We needed to pray together for help, then go face the demons with scripture, prayer, and what some child therapists might call "therapeutic holding." Bible. I needed my bible. I went to look for it, only to remember it was in my friend's room already. I went back, pulled it out of my bag, set it on the bed. Then I got up to close the door so we could hear ourselves, but instead just walked straight to his room and shouted, "THAT IS ENOUGH! THAT IS NOT APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR! YOU WILL NOT SAY THAT TO YOUR MOTHER!" There was a pregnant silence in the dark room. Then he erupted, "GO AWAY!!!!! GO AWAY, GO AWAY, GO AWAY! I HATE YOU, GO AWAY!" His voice was going raw with the mantra, but the volume was not decreasing. Filled with anger of my own at the whole situation, I marched in to his room and climbed the ladder again, capturing his writhing body in my arms in a hard hug. And that was when I realized I was a moron. Sure, I could hold him still- I must be at least three times his weight. But I had no idea what to pray. My mind was empty. I hadn't prepared. Then his mother was there, commanding the demons in his room to leave him, telling her son that she loved him and Jesus loved him, acknowledging that she understood he was dissapointed but he needed to fight the demons who were consuming him with rage. She reminded him that he needed to sleep so he could have a good day at school tomorrow. "I DON'T CARE!" screamed the still thrashing, yelling, and sobbing child. "Yes, you do," she countered firmly, and then proceeded to remind him of the things her son had learned to like at school, the goals he wanted to achieve. She asked him if he would let her hold him. Though still crying and occasionally screaming, he agreed, and so his mother and I switched spots. By this point, the child needed his inhaler, so I went in search of it. Predictably, it was not where the boy thought it would be, so I asked God to help me find it. He did. I took it to the now quietly crying and gasping child, whose mother was reassuring him that the room was filled with angels now, he was safe and could go to sleep. We turned on his favourite worship c-d, exchanged I-love-yous and good-nights, and he went to sleep. Out in the hall, my friend turned to me and demanded, "What were you thinking?! When you went to find your bible, I thought, 'Oh good, she knows what she's doing.' Then you suddenly went charging into a room filled with 50 demons and I was like, 'Oh dang, she doesn't.'" "I'm sorry," I said, ashamed. "I don't know what I was thinking. I guess it was just pride." "Well, it worked out alright," she said kindly, "I knew I'd have to go rescue you, so you motivated me to get back on my feet again. We live and learn." And we know that all things work to the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. Coincidentally (or providentially?), my last meeting with Lisa was on the Saturday morning before that interesting Sunday night episode. One of the things we discussed was learning to recognize the limitations of our personal skills and knowledge, and the importance of seeking the Holy Spirit for healing spiritual wounds that aren't effectively touched by mere psychological and social treatments. The topic came up partly because it was something I'd begun sorting through in my last three school papers and two presentations, which Lisa wanted to hear the out-come of. In addition, while out with friends on Saturday night celebrating our respective graduations and un-graduations, I had been convicted of my self-focus when my astute friend Jen burst out laughing at me for temporarily zoning out in the middle of another friend's conversation. God, I'm thick. Please help. I'm trying. Just shut up and listen, for crying out loud:) And security has come to kick me out.

A Hole is to Dig

2008-04-11T15:10:00.000-07:00

Well, school is nearly finished. Now that the reality is setting in, I'm starting to realize freedom from school will have its own unique blessings and curses that I am perhaps not quite ready to face. For all my whining, I've become very attached to the simultaneously blessed and cursed lifestyle of an urban post-secondary student hermit. Now I am transitioning from a life of thinking to a life of doing. What will it be like to live life experientially? I can't imagine. One last paper due Monday morning. One last presentation on Wednesday. Both require me to summarize in slightly different ways where I have come from, where I am presently, and where I am going. I can answer the first question, but the other two will be a little more difficult. I feel very...pulled apart...at present. Not fragmented. Fragmentation suggests a state of brittleness, irrepairability, and probably lost pieces. I'm still all here, I'm just not so sure where here is, or who I am, let alone where I'm going next. I trust God will put me back together eventually (albeit a little differently than before), but in the meantime I'll be sifting through prophecies, memories, theories, passions, promises, and feelings the way young children sift through wet sand at a beach, looking for treasures from the sea. So while I sift, I'm leaving you with this nursery poem by Ruth Krauss I fell in love with this year.

A Hole is To Dig: A First Book of First Definitions

Mashed potatoes are to give everybody enough A face is so you can make faces A face is something to have on the front of your head Dogs are to kiss people Hands are to hold A hand is to hold up when you want your turn A hole is to dig The ground is to make a garden Grass is to cut Grass is to have on the ground with dirt under it and clover in it Maybe you could hide things in a hole A party is to say how-do-you-do and shake hands A party is to make little children happy Arms are to hug with Toes are to wiggle Ears are to wiggle Mud is to jump in and slide in and yell doodleedoodleedoo Anh-h-h! Doodleedoodleedoo-oo! A castle is to build in the sand A hole is to sit in A dream is to look at the night and see things Snow is to roll in Buttons are to keep people warm The world is so you have something to stand on The sun is to tell you when it's every day When you make your bed you get a star Little stones are for little children to gather up and put in little piles Oo! A rock is when you trip on it you should have watched where you were going Children are to love A brother is to help you A principal is to take out splinters A mountain is to go to the top A mountain is to go to the bottom A lap is so you don't get crumbs on the floor A mustache is to wear on Halloween A hat is to wear on a train Toes are to dance on Eyebrows are to go over your eyes A sea shell is to hear the sea A wave is to wave bye-bye Big shells are to put little shells in A hole is to plant a flower A watch is to hear it tick Dishes are to do Cats are so you can have kittens Mice are to eat your cheese Noses are to rub A nose is to blow A match is to blow A whistle is to make people jump Rugs are so you don't get splinters in you Hunh! Rugs are so dogs have napkins A floor is so you don't fall in the hole your house is in A hole is for a mouse to live in A door is to open A door is to shut A hole is to look through Steps are to sit on A hole is when you step in it you go down Hands are to make things Hands are to eat with A tablespoon is to eat a table with A package is to look inside The sun is so it can be a great day A book is to look at

(IM)POSSIBLE

2008-02-21T12:35:00.000-08:00

Hung out with Lisa for a few hours yesterday. That's always dangerous. We seem very similar in a lot of ways, personality probably topping the list. However, as is the case with many of the people I most admire, she's a good deal further along in areas of spiritual development I am still struggling with. Thus, some of her stories from Malta once again reminded me of goals I set a few years ago and still haven't faced. For example, about 3 or 4 years ago while doing house-keeping duties for my boss, I was listening to a Graham Cooke instructional c-d my brother Nolan lent me. Cooke cited Romans 8:19-21: "The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God." Cooke's point was that nature physically responds to humans who are filled with the Spirit of God. His case in point was St. Patrick, who was followed in loving adoration by wild animals across Ireland. Lisa had a more recent example: wind and waves suddenly picking up and crashing whenever two of her intercessor mentors came near. You know, my favourite stories as a child and teen were always fantastic tales of seemingly weak or unimportant figures, such as orphans or beggars or orphaned beggars, finding they have extraordinary powers to control and commune with natural elements, such as animals, fire, water, plants, earth, the weather. We always think those stories have such great appeal precisely because they're impossible in reality. But what if we "invent" those mythic stories in the first place because not only are they possible, but we were intended to live them? So I asked God that day, in the midst of vacuuming an already clean carpet, if I could be like St. Patrick, and have wild birds come sit in my hand and let me stroke them. It hasn't happened yet. Also about 3 or 4 years ago, I borrowed two books from Nolan. One was called Eli, which was a fictitious work that tried to show what Christ's life and sacrifical death would mean and look like if they had occurred in North America today. The other was called Blessed Child, which was about (you guessed it) an orphaned child raised in a middle east monastery who was born with an unusually strong presence of the Spirit of God in him. He stunned North America with his ability to heal the blind, crippled, and disfigured; to survive drinking ridiculous amounts of cyanide and being shot by snipers. Both these books raised in my mind the possibility that I could be healed of my diabetis. I'd never asked God about it before: I always figured I should just be grateful I was born in an age and place where my condition could be treated so I could live a fairly normal life. I've never been bitter or depressed over having diabetis- it actually creates some good common ground between myself and anyone suffering with an incurable condition. I don't really regret suffering depression either, for the same reason. There are some gifts from heaven that cannot be received in a state of happiness. Still, diabetis is an expensive burden for my parents to bear, not to mention a blight on the environment from all the disposable syringes, lancettes, test-strips, testers, and insulin vials required, so I decided to at least ask God if he'd heal me. He did not. However, he didn't say whether or not I would ever be healed from it at some later time in my life. Perhaps he'd like to save it for a more public occasion where his glory can be revealed to many people besides just me and my family. I'm okay with that mystery: God will decide how long I live, just as he ultimately decides how long everyone will live. Diabetis does not change that. I put the question aside. But then I started reading this book called The New Friars for a class on spirituality I'm taking with one of my favourite professors, Charles Nienkircken. The New Friars describes the old roots of new movements within modern radical Christianity towards vows of poverty, purity, and being the gospel incarnate. He notes this life has two forms: (1) contemplative, which provides places of spiritual sanctuary where people are invited to come live in healing community together (e.x. urban monastery houses of prayer) and (2) missional, where individuals go out alone or in groups to live among the poor/marginalized, serving them from a level of equality rather than a position of power. It has such a powerful call to it. Matthew 25:1-46 (The Sheep and the Goats) was really emphasized in the book, which is partly why I quoted it in my last post ("Faces").

Verses 34-36 Then the King will say to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."

In that same class where I read The New Friars, we watched a video highlighting 5 pilgrimage sites: how they came to be pilgrimage sites, and how pilgrims to those places feel they were impacted by/changed through their pilgrimage experiences. Of all the deep, ancient spiritual places to go on earth, one of the 5 featured in this video was Canadian. I was kind of surprised. I've never heard of any pilgrimage sites in Canada. When I think of spiritual sanctuary here, I picture the wild, the mountains in particular. I've always found it easiest to see God when surrounded by his creation. Conversely, when I think of pilgrimage, I imagine pretty much any place except North America. We don't keep anything old if it's not making good money. Not even our globally rare expanses of wilderness, which is perhaps why I'm an environmentalist geek: deforestation, mining, and pollution feel like a desecration of the sacred to me, equivalent to someone spray-painting profanity all over the ceiling of the Cistine Chapel. It's just wrong. Well, lo and behold, the Canadian pilgrimage site is a natural area. It's called Lac de St. Anne (Lake of Saint Anne).

Lac de St. Anne is like the Native/Canadian version of the Israelites' pool of Bethesda. Native groups have put aside their squabbles and fights to visit this lake because of its physical, spiritual, emotional, and relational healing properties since before the Europeans began coming. Don't get me wrong- I understand that it's not the water that heals people, and I know that God doesn't heal everyone, that we can't earn or manipulate God into giving us what we want by enduring certain hardships or going to certain places. But I think it's fair to say that some places on earth have been blessed (or cursed) with an especially intense presence of Spirit (Holy or otherwise), and in those places we are especially prone to transformation.

Transformation appeals to me. Not just in body, but in spirit. I want to cultivate a spirit of truth, fearlessness, love. I know in my mind that all things are possible through Christ who gives me strength. But I don't know it yet. There are a lot of experiences I avoid because I fear how they'll interact with my diabetis. I was sooo excited about finally going on my first back-packing camping trip with Nolan, Chasey, and Sam last summer. I want to do things like that- I want to immerse myself in simplicity, in beauty, in wild, in challenge, in quality time spent building meaningful relationships with people. But I'm so afraid of being isolated somewhere when I'm having a low blood sugar. Neither my siblings nor my friends wake up when I get up in the middle of the night because I'm having a low blood sugar- only my parents have developed the light sleeping habits required to get up with me when I need them. On that camping trip, my blood sugars were ranging from 2.0 mmol/L (50% of the min. required before brain damage and imminent death occur) to 24 mmol/L (4X the max. needed, which can cause long-term problems like blindness and loss of appendages) four times a day because I couldn't figure out how to balance my insulin, exercise, and food intake. It was scary. I felt physically sick. I've stopped playing soccer, partly because of time constraints, but also because it freaks me out that I can't tell the difference between a low blood sugar and simply being tired- the symptoms are the same. The only reason I didn't die just before Christmas when I accidentally overdosed on insulin in the middle of the day is because God brought my dad home early from work, so he found me unconscious and convulsing on the floor in time to get paramedics to me before I hit the no-return point. I don't even remember the seizures or hitting the floor, but the idea of it really shook me up (sorry for the unintended pun) for weeks afterwards. The ground-beef texture of my tongue and the mysterious white foam circles with metal things in the middle stuck all over my body were eery tangible reminders of how close I came to death. I've always rejected the possibility of my being a missionary among remote peoples because I know that it would be really difficult/ impossible to get reliable/consistent access to the medications and food I need there. Maybe that's God's way of protecting me from feeling guilty for not answering the call to GO make disciples of the nations. On the other hand, fear is not of God. And I feel like I'm wasting the best years of my life avoiding things I'd like to try while I'm still young enough and free from responsibilities.

I love my parents very much, and I appreciate the sacrifices they have made so that I and my siblings could have all the opportunities we do for sports, music lessons, and post-secondary education. Both my social psych and personality psych profs confirm that we all become very like our parents by middle age no matter how hard we try to become something else. But I dread the thought of becoming them. There has to be more to life than watching movies or reading novels so you can avoid noticing as your body atrophies from disuse and wishing every morning that you were not returning to a job you hate with all your being. There has to be more than this present avoidance of people and places whose strength makes me feel embarrassed by my comparative inadequacies and weaknesses. God, please, I don't want to do this forever. I don't want to do it now.

So I've begun thinking that maybe a pilgrimage would be good for me. Possibly this summer, or maybe the next. I wouldn't go alone- I'd definitely want at least one friend with me. So it'd be a good relationship deepening experience with both God and people as we push ourselves, struggle. Meeting people along the way (friends and strangers) that God intentionally brings into our path would be cool. I really like the idea of going to a place where Native peoples dialogue with each other and with Christ-followers (not that there aren't a significant number of people who are both already) about faith, healing, God, and the land. I'm willing to bet walking or biking from Calgary to Lac de St. Anne would also take a while (I'm guessing a month, at least) and put me in much better physical shape than what full-time studies has reduced me to. I could finally have the solitude, the quiet, the simplicity, the discipline and daily order so very lacking from my city life. Facebook is killing my soul:) I like the idea of temporarily protesting/ rejecting our culture's obsessions with working to acquire more wealth than we need, moving from one place to another at break-neck speeds without actually being present anywhere, and seeking happiness and comfort before everything else. I want to revolt. I want to be inefficient, uncomfortable, present, and inaccessible. Plus, I've always wanted to see the north. But not yet. I have studies to complete over the next 2 months. God told me they're important. Oh, the tensions of now and then, real and unreal, the possible and impossible. Stupid tensions.

Faces

2008-02-17T20:20:00.000-08:00

"I see dead people. They're everywhere."- Cole Sear's confession to his Psychologist in The Sixth Sense. "There are dead things- dead faces in the water!" -Samwise Gamgee, traveling through the dead marshes in The Twin Towers. All the Lonely People by the Beatles I look at all the lonely people. I look at all the lonely people. Ella Marigby Picks up the rice in the church where her wedding has been; Lives in a dream. Waits at the window, Wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door. Who is it for? All the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they all belong? Father MacKenzie Writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear; No one comes near. Look at him working, Nodding his socks in the night when there's nobody there. What does he care? All the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they all belong? I look at all the lonely people. I look at all the lonely people. Ella Marigby Died in the church and was buried alone with her name. Nobody came. Father MacKenzie Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from her grave. No one was saved. All the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they all belong? Matthew 25:1-46 (The Sheep and the Goats). Verses 34-36 Then the King will say to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." Verses 41-43 Then the King will say to those on his left, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me." I am sure I have heard a sermon on this passage at least once a year every year of my life since I was born. No doubt they were all very well spoken- the passage and its meaning are not difficult to retrieve from the misty recesses of my memory. Then again, the Word of God is powerful no matter who speaks it. But it's haunting me now. Or rather, they're haunting me. The faces. The young man walking as quickly as he could towards the walk way over the river, hood up and looking down, trying to hide his face from passers-by. He was crying. Hard. He stunned me with the rawness of his hurt- a hurt so great he couldn't even hide it from the strangers he was trying so desperately to avoid. At first I continued my way in the opposite direction, but I got to the corner and felt compelled to go back. Are you okay? Can I pray for you? Where are you going? Is there anyone else in your life who can be with you through this? I followed him. He sped up. I started trotting. He started jogging. I followed him to the river pathway, then just watched to make sure he wasn't throwing himself off the bridge into the icey river below. He didn't. Deja vu. It was like passing and then following a male version of myself a couple months ago. Poor man. Not only was his heart and soul publicly broken, but in addition, when he's just trying to find solitude to heal in, some nosey woman starts stalking him. I let him be. I prayed someone he wouldn't be so creeped out by would find him and let him know God loves him and wants to heal him. A teen walking on the cross-over from a train station to the sidewalk. Repulsed of society: he was overweight, foreign, alone, dressed in a geeky track-suit, observably mentally retarded, and loudly moaning to himself. He walked with a limp, and his ankles were red with frost-bite. Why isn't he wearing socks? It's -30 degrees with wind-chill today. Where is his family? Where are his friends? Does he have any? Why is he moaning? Does he need help getting down the steps? I hurried past him, envisioning how I could ask if he needed assistance even as I rushed to the bottom of the stairs and continued on my way home, pretending he didn't exist like everyone else. It's hard to pray for someone when you're feeling guilty about failing to be the gospel incarnate you're asking God to bring them. A woman sitting on a bench in the mall. There's a walker in front of her- she seems a decade or two too young for it, but I guess poor health can hit anyone. She's frumpy-looking, and I wish I could take her shopping in this commercial mecca, then out for a manicure and hair-styling, and finally a fine dinner theatre experience where she can show it all off, to remind her that she's beautiful and loved. But it's her facial expression that literally stops me in my tracks. There is only one word to describe it: ANGUISH. She is in agony- physical, I think, probably connected to a spinal injury. Are you okay? You're sitting alone, with no shopping bags nearby, and it's almost time for the mall to close. Is anyone coming to get you? Why are you here? I stand in indecision. I don't want to embarrass her, but I don't want her to feel abandoned in her suffering by God and all of humanity. My friend has turned around and is looking back at me, wondering why I've stopped. We're here to buy my friend a ring to commemorate her newfound freedom from spiritual oppression in her life- a powerful event that occurred earlier this week while I was writing papers. The woman stretches with a trembling hand to a trendy young woman reading on the other side of the bench. She taps twice, until the girl cannot ignore the woman any more. The woman indicates a spot on her neck and the girl obliges her by feeling it. I decide that she has been taken care of and continue on with my friend. Later, we pass the woman again. The girl has gone back to her reading, and the woman is sitting alone, looking lost. I look at her and offer a friendly smile. I see you. You're not invisible. You matter. She does not, cannot, return the smile, drops her eyes to the ground, and begins the laborious process of rising to her feet. I kept walking with my friend, knowing I should have stopped. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do (Romans 7:15). These are the faces of the weak, mine and theirs. The faces are everywhere. I feel them looking at me; searching, wanting, always needing more than I think I can give. On the c-train, when I go for walks, in my class, over the phone. I dread the calls from those same people when I'm at the DC. My silent questions are always the same: Are you okay? Where are your friends? Where is your family? They're nowhere. Unavailable or untrustworthy. And so, I'm forced to make inadequate referrals to therapists and help-lines they wouldn't need if there were just a handful of people in the world who cared how their day was, who would stand with them long enough to discover the names of the demons in their lives and then command them with the authority of Christ to leave. Acts 3:1-10 Verses 6 & 7. Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong. The apostles (1) saw the crippled man, (2) stopped to talk to him, and (3) offered him physical healing through the power of Christ, so that the crippled man could be restored to his friends and family, able to be a part of society instead of sitting at its gate. So far, all I've got down is step one. Occassionally I get to step two. I want to get to step three. Why is it so hard? And why am I training so hard to become a psychologist when some good intercessory prayer is so much more effective? We've already been over this, Faye. You need an 'in'. People need bridges between science and spirituality, someone who can translate the language of faith in one to the other. I have called you to bridge, to walk in the no man's land between worlds where few tread. Remain in me... The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-10) by Jesus Christ Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Like Wine

2008-02-09T00:38:00.000-08:00

Despite the catchy title, this post isn't really about wine. I try wine about once a year, usually at social gatherings, because it seems like an artsy, anciently historic, and sophisticated thing to do. I have failed to yet develop a liking for it, beer, ale, buttermilk, or coffee. The coffee I drink medicinally when I really need to stay awake for unnatural amounts of time to get school-work done. And, like medicine, it has some ugly side effects for me- 24 hour un-throw-upable stomach nausea topping the list. Alternatively, I suppose that particular symptom could also be from the poisonous artificial sweetener or the fat-free flavoured creamer I add to disguise the awful coffee taste...(And no, I don't know how it's possible for cream to be fat-free, anymore than I understand how it's possible to have sugar-free sugar. Please don't ask me, and please don't tell me if you know. I don't want to think about it too much. Oh wait, too late.) The point is: this post is actually about people and their interactions with each other. I had a sort of "Aha!" moment on my way to the c-train station this morning. It suddenly occurred to me that all people are both alcoholic beverages and alcoholic beverage drinkers (Yes, I'm aware that alcohol-drinkers are people too. I'm reading Gergen's The Saturated Self in class now so you'll likely see a separate rant on cultural meaning and mental health another time. Be quiet and focus on my analogy). People are like alcohol in that they come in different flavours and concentrations. Some flavours are immediately sweet and easy to like; others are bitter and require habituation and the right frame of mind to properly appreciate. Some concentrations are very low, impacting the drinker very little, and can therefore be taken in greater quantities before effects will become noticeable. Others are intensely concentrated, impacting the drinker immediately, and can only be handled in small quantities. Such people are intoxicating, and in the wake of their absorption they leave you feeling disoriented, uncoordinated, speech-impaired, and oh-so-very-happy-yet-guilty-at-the-same-time. People are drinkers in that everyone has different capacities for absorption and differing taste preferences. Like an alcohol tolerance, people have minimum and maximum bounds for comsuming and absorbing the interactions of a relationship. These limits are determined genetically, but the precise level of tolerance is set by circumstance and experience. As with taste preferences, there are some "flavours" or characteristics of people that tend to be appealing to nearly everyone. In food, sweetness is pretty much universally liked because this is a sign to our brains that what we're eating is in fact edible and not poisonous or useless. In people, things like facial symmetry, a sense of humour, and trustworthiness are generally considered attractive traits. Okay, enough of the social psychology- I'm more of a personality psychology fan. I'll throw off this defensive intellectualization and explain. I have a puzzle, which I'm going to work through as I write, so readers beware. I have been taught that personality traits are mostly stable across the life span. Experiences can shift them along their spectrums, but usually not all that far. One personality trait considered foundational to many personality psychologists is the introversion-extroversion scale. A person is said to be high in introversion when he or she does a lot of cognitive/emotional processing internally and generally feels his or her energy renewed from time alone. On the opposite end of the spectrum, extroverts feel refreshed/renewed when engaged with others and tend to do a lot of their cognitive/emotional processing out loud in conversations with others. The theory explaining these differences holds that introverts are somewhat more sensitive to stimulation from the social environment around them because they are already dealing with plenty of information about their own state of being inside. In contrast, extroverts are not as self-conscious and therefore crave the stimulation that comes from those around them. If you want to go back to my alcoholic analogy, introverts are sort of like drinkers with no enzymes to break down alcohol and not a lot of body mass- a little gets absorbed fast and does a lot quickly. Extroverts are more like experienced drinkers with genes to break down alcohol- it takes more than 2 to make a dent. I maintain that I am more introverted than extroverted. I feel much happier and able to relate if the social context is limited to (a) close family and friends I know well already and who know me and (b) very small groups or one-on-one exchanges with strangers or aquaintances. The intensity of the individual person(s) I'm with also impacts this, but not always and that is what puzzles me. None of my best friends or siblings are people I could describe as "mild". You see, I'm an addict for intense personalities. I love people who are who they are. I delight in people who demonstrate fearlessness, but there aren't a lot of those and I value genuineness more than the performance of someone who appears to have everything together. Although personality psychologists maintain that married couples ought to have complementary personalities so that each dyad-member's weaknesses are compensated for and strengths put to the greatest use, social psychologists point out that we also tend to prefer friends and spouses who are very similar to ourselves. So what does that make me? Functionally speaking, I'm the mild one. People spend time with me to relax, to unwind, to heal. Just call me tranquility personified. My very presence enables ADHD children to stay asleep at night; neurotic and incensed women to stop abusing their offensive children/strangers/parents or significant other; and anxious individuals to speak at a pace and pitch identifiable as human instead of squirrel. I'm okay with messiness-I have my own flaws and weaknesses to bear; I don't expect anyone else to be perfect either. I find joy in calling out the best in others so the weaknesses don't seem so important. But I don't feel mild. Just because other people's crises don't appear to phase me at the time doesn't mean they don't cost me, or that I don't hurt when they hit me hard. Five hours of talking to strangers about their life issues wears me out. Particularly if it was a shift full of high risk or even just identity-transformative calls, I'll need as many as 3 hours of strict solitude to wind down afterwards, to sift, sort, and release all the thoughts and emotions that have built up. Hanging out with my best friends continuously is something I can do for a max. of 2 days straight before I start to shut down and withdraw into silence. The more chaotic or intense the situation or person, the more I need to draw on space and silence to respond intelligently. So really it's not that I myself am an ocean of tranquility for people to wash in, I'm just something of a garbage collector with a refurbishing/recycling side-business who knows where to put things other people don't know what to do with. God is the cleansing ocean, Christ the dump for our crap we don't know what to do with, the Holy Spirit the freshwater source for all healing and renewal. I guess it's the inpredictability of the situation and individual that I find most difficult to deal with. I'm okay if I have a plan, if I remember where, when, and how to release my own burdens and those I relieve other people of. I'm okay if I can hide. In most of the places where I encounter strangers or acquaintances, there are pre-set rules of etiquette and complementary, mutual roles to be played out. I don't have to decide on the spot how to deal with the situation- I already have guidelines to work with. When I play soccer, I prefer defense because I can see the whole field and respond to the plays instead of having to invent them. When I answer calls at the DC, I follow the general protocals set out by my training and don't have to worry about future encounters- we won't recognize each other on the street and anonymity means that I have no further responsibility to the people I talk to when the call ends. School has its own student rules/roles, and my current church is possibly as ritualized in social patterns as c-train ridership. I've very adept at avoiding eye contact in those places so I don't have to engage, don't have to know what people are thinking and feeling and feel responsible for them. You will note my tolerance for close friends or family members is greater than my tolerance for strangers (2 days versus 5 hours, respectively). Even the incredibly intense (*cough* Melanie) or spontaneous (*cough, cough* Chasey and Nolan) ones don't overwhelm me as quickly because I know them well enough and we have enough of an established history together to respond appropriately to them. We have our own ceremonies, our own commonly held language, and I can fall into those relational movements and meanings as automatically as I can tie my shoelaces or do up my coat zipper. In fact, their familiarity is so comforting that I crave it as much as solitude. In contrast, the situations I hate the most are ones where I'm expected to make snap decisions based on minimal information. These include social situations where there are a lot of people I don't know well and there is no organized activity to bind us together. Situations where my relationship to others, and the roles I am to play, are ambiguous. Parties frequently fit under this category. Acquaintances at parties are actually worse for me to deal with than strangers because the relationship's direction and quality are ambiguous. With strangers I just start at the beginning (i.e. "Hi, I'm Faye. What's your name? What are you up to in life- job/school? hobbies? How are you liking this weather?") but with aquaintances I feel lost in the misty space between here and there: "Are we at a place in our relationship where we can talk about _____ or is that too personal? Did I just give out waaaay too much information? What were they looking for when they asked how I was doing? What the duece did they mean when they said ____?" It's just too much information to sort through at once. My defense in such situations is to retreat into my own silence, a sort of cave from which I can watch and learn the social territory and its rules and plan out an appropriate course through them. This strategy just doesn't work when the law of the land calls for immediate engagement. Practical application of what I've learned about myself today: what personality traits and individual characteristics do I really want to be the same and different from my own in a future spouse? Do I seek the intensity I crave, whose being is a shot of Bailey's, even though the relationship building process would make me a veritable drunkard and likely be self-defeating? Or do I accept the willing, comfortable tameness of the Bacardi cooler, still sweet, I can drive myself home and not get a ticket for intoxication? Do I agree with the statement: "Without addictions, we die"? Do I believe in all-or-nothing gambling? God, I just don't know.

Enough

2008-02-08T12:54:00.000-08:00

What do we mean when we say we've had enough? I've had enough school. And by 'enough,' I mean: enough of reading, writing, thinking, sitting, and endless functional but superficial communication; and enough of getting nowhere near enough sleep, exercise, out-doors, or quality time with God, friends, and family. I've had enough of compulsive, swirling, obsessive, compounding, fragmented thoughts that won't let me concentrate or rest. I've had enough of not being enough, of not getting enough done. I've had enough. A Meditation on Candles Peace calls to me, and Melanie pushes me towards it, suggesting 'meditation'. I'm desperate. Today I'll try something new: "Bringing every thought captive..." Dave's verse. Today it's mine. "Expand my territory..." Jabez' prayer. Not my will be done but thine. "The Kingdom of Heaven is like..." well, candles. Even tea lights give off enough heat to burn your hands if they hover too close too long. Every candle has its circle of influence- a quietly advancing lake deeper, wider. The signs of wax breaking down are feeble and inconsistent at first: just sporadic droplettes here and there that become here and here and here and here; connecting to their neighbours until none is left behind. They've all melted together. Breathe in. Green is the theme today. Three different citrus tea lights that came in a jar of tranquilitea, compliments of Tachae. In addition, a friendly pistachio-coloured pot of 'candied pears,' a gift from Danielle Devore I thought I'd never use; now, Comforting Warmth soak into my soul. My mind is a blizzard of ash angry and chaotic and damaging like a volcano instead of the blizzard out-side- cold and fierce and cleansing. So burn. Tumerous thoughts wash away, melt away. Melt away. Breathe out. John says: "Jesus breathed on his disciples" before his ascent- "a blessing". We generally avoid being breathed on. Breath is stinky, wet, contagious, a violation of our personal space. Maybe we need to be violated to be blessed. God is never described as 'nice' in the bible. Probably because 'nice' implies 'polite'. God isn't polite. Good, yes, but not polite. Politeness requires staying within the confines of a society's norms, rituals, rules of living. But God exists out-side of society, before society, and after. He is the outer edge- wild, like flame; and infitismally small- intimate and foundational, like droplettes of wax and heated gas particles, rising unseen. God, I have read about you with the reading of the eyes. But now I smell you; therefore, I release myself and I will burn as wax and ashes. For it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. Breathe on me, God. I'm tired of listening to fears. Warm my face, lion of Judah, with your dragon's breath. Replace my heart of stone with a heart of flesh. The lakes grow deeper. 'Sucker green' is a translucent pool; only a small crescent isle holds out from turning clear to the bottom. The centre light takes her time, melting evenly all the way around. Olive green rim streams into lemon, with a dark metal plate in the centre beneath: she is an eye. To the left: 'Sucker Yellow' pool with a pastel crescent, not as far along as Green, but Yellow is burning steadily nonetheless. Finally, the Pear: wick off-centre, she carves a slippery-walled cavern on one hand and signs her carbon-print signature on the other. Dancing in whispers green, yellow-green, and yellow reflected on the gentle contours of my friendly pistachio-coloured Mrs. Potts. Damn. Breathed out too hard. The dark green is now simply dark. There is sorrow- a candle should be lit. There is salvation- Christ is the light of the world; he will re-start it and keep re-starting it until its task is finished and everything it was has been freed. Into the atmosphere... and beyond! But not alone; Particles like to congregate- that is how the stars, sun, moon, and planets were formed. Birth, death, re-birth: that is the way of the cosmos, until such time as God says, "Enough." In Stumbling on Happiness we see that after we leave abject poverty more money does not make us more happy. Just seek enough. That's enough. Blow out the candles and go eat lunch with Mel- just enough to satisfy. I am satisfied. Thanks, God.

Picture

2008-02-03T15:51:00.000-08:00

I love this picture. I really wish it was mine. It's not. Someone in New Brunswick took it.

City Lights and Traffic Bites

2008-01-31T17:35:00.000-08:00

If you want to read something inspiring, joyful, or wise, I highly reccomend the blogs of Lisa, Nolan, or Amy, respectively and simultaneously (links may be found to the right- yes, I have finally learned my left and right, stop clapping). This post is just me screaming.

Beautiful Blue

by Holly McNarland

From the picture on the wall

To the bed posts that touch them all

This is where I live

This is where I do my screamin'

How do you say

I loved you in so many other ways

This is where I live

This is where I do my screamin'

Dreamin' up so much ugliness

Wakin' up to all this beautiful blue

Beautiful you

From the time I walked in

To the point where we're both arguin'

This is how I live

This is where I start screamin'

How do you say

I've always felt this way

This is where I live

This is what I do best

Dreamin' with so much ugliness

Wakin' up to all this beautiful blue

Beautiful you

Na na na...

Dreamin' under this ugliness

Wakin' up to all this beautiful blue

Beautiful you

Na na na...

I don't know why that song's stuck in my head. Maybe it's because I've been hanging out in my school's 6th floor lounge for hours by myself, occassionally glancing out at the now dark skies and bright city lights. Some moments, the city looks beautiful. Like when I meet colourful people who aren't afraid to be themselves, aren't afraid to live life, aren't afraid to give. At least, not afraid enough that it holds them back. The snow sparkles, the sun shines. Other times, I hate this place. I feel like Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, hopelessly trying to chew off a hideous dragon skin that has become a part of me but actually isn't mine. This city is my skin, and I can't seem to leave it behind. Don't know what the bracelet cutting off circulation to Eustace's arm represents, apart from inescapable pain. Inescapable. Pain. Oh, it's my coursework. Man, why am I training to become a psychologist when I'd make such a darn fine psychoanalyst? Just look at the free-associations I'm capable of with enough sleep-deprivation and hunger!

Help, God. I have to conduct a narrative interview in 25 minutes and I can't do it like this. I'm not even sure where this, whatever it is, came from. I felt fine earlier. Something that I ate? No, not ate. Not physical food. Something I consumed: information, a poisoned connection, a broken relation. And something I neglected to consume: love, truth, air. 15 minutes left. I need to go prepare. Here I go. Please go with me.

This One's For December

2008-01-14T23:25:00.001-08:00

So this is January. Our second week of January, in fact. Per tradition, I've been back in school only a week and I'm already behind in all 3 of my classes. In addition, it looks like I'm not going to be allowed to graduate on time. I found out just before the Christmas break that in order to graduate I need a second intro to the bible class. The particular class I'm missing is not offered this semester, so the registrar recommended that I apply to the Academic board and ask to substitute the intro class with another religious course, noting in my application that I have also taken 4 other higher level religion courses. I did as she recommended, even offering to take any of 3 different classes that could fit my schedule. Then Nolan and I prayed last Thursday that the school would process my request quickly so I don't fall too far behind in my mystery religion class. Well, they've finished processing. They said, "No." No explanation, just "No." An ironically brief answer for something that really means; "No, we're not letting you take another course even if we can pick what you take, and no, you can't take the same course anywhere else because this is your last year and we don't allow transfer credits in students' last year of study; so no, you cannot graduate with your friends this year because you have to come back for another half a year to take one frickin' intro to the bible course, which means no, you can't apply for graduate studies in 2009 because your marks won't be available for submission by the December due date. Have a nice day." I'll show you nice. A nice, caps-locked, italicized, underlined, and bolded swear word belongs here, but since I already said it aloud several times when I read their email I figure there's no point in repeating it in the written word. I asked God if I could go rant and swear in my journal about red-tape blinded academic board members, but he said he'd prefer it if I praised him instead. So at 1:23 am, I started singing Christmas carols. I hated Christmas this year. True, there were good moments: hanging out with Amy, prayer counselling with Sindy, cross country skiing with Nolan and my dad, leisurely eating Christmas bread with my family Christmas morning, reading books I don't have to write reports about. But overall, it felt very hollow. I was sick, so I couldn't sing carols. The radio djs felt a disturbing need to play (and replay) musically horrid renditions of shallow Christmas carols about snow we didn't have. There were no candles at my church's Christmas Eve Candle-light service. I made no New Year's Resolutions. Thus, below is Good King Wenceslas, my favourite Christmas carol, which I never did hear this year. This one's for December:

Good King Wenceslas looked out On the Feast of Stephen. When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even; Brightly shone the moon that night, Tho' the frost was cruel, When a poor man came in sight, Gath'ring winter fuel. "Hither page and stand by me, If thou know'st it, telling, Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?" "Sire, he lives a good league hence, Underneath the mountain; Right against the forest fence, By St. Agnes' fountain." "Bring me flesh and bring me wine, Bring me pine logs hither; Thou and I will see him dine, When we bear them thither." Page and monarch forth they went, Forth they went together; Through the rude wind's wild lament And the bitter weather. "Sire, the night is darker now, And the wind blows stronger; Fails my heart I know not how, I can go no longer." "Mark my footsteps, my good page; Tread thou in them boldly; Thou shalt find the winter's rage Freeze thy blood less coldly." In his master's steps he trod, Where the snow lay dinted; Heat was in the very sod Which the saint had printed. Therefore Christian men, be sure, Wealth or rank possessing, Ye who now will bless the poor Shall yourselves find blessing.

To Grow a Heart

2007-11-18T16:18:00.000-08:00

Ezekiel 11:19 I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.

God is growing me back into my heart. He started by reintroducing me to joy. On Sunday, I escaped my rising sun-setting dread by accepting my friend's invitation to sleep over at her house. Like a Thomas Kincade painting, her house was bright and inviting inside when I arrived in the dark, and her two children in whom I delight came running to the door to see me the moment I stepped inside. They love me because I hold them by their ankles and swing them in the air, or fireman-carry them upstairs to bed, frequently (but accidentally) bumping them into walls and furniture on the way. It's amazing how this mild act of violence elicits such powerful mutual affection and joy. On Wednesday, I went out with my "French" friends, Jen and Stuart, to a Chinese restaurant where we shared some excellent Mandarin chicken. I (sort of) taught Jen how to use chop-sticks. Then we walked across the street to the Pages bookstore in Kensington for the poetry reading and celebration of Writing the Land's publication. Writing the Land is a collection of poems written by Albertan poets and collected by a brand new Albertan publishing company, called House of Blue Skies, about the land of Alberta and authors' connections to it. Jen's favourite poem by Stuart, Weaselhead Variations, which he read to her on their first date as they walked through Weaselhead Park (AWWWWW), is in the book, so he was invited to come read it aloud at the book launch. He did so proudly. Afterwards, Jen and I congregated to chat with a few other non-writers while Stuart, a social butterfly at heart, wandered around talking to the many people he knows at poetry readings. When most of the room had cleared out, Stuart returned and informed Jen that he and his friend Rob were going out to a pub for some male bonding time, so he'd walk her to her car and kiss her good-night. Then, as he wrapped his arm around her to steer her out, he turned to a woman we'd been chatting with and asked, "Want to come along?" While I silently started laughing my head off behind him, Jen and the other woman simultaneously dropped their jaws in shock, then verbally jumped him like the Papparrazi jumped on Princess Di with their cameras. I was still laughing when I left Jen and Stuart making out...I mean up...on a street corner to catch my train home. At the train station, I sat down in the shelter to begin recording this story in my journal, when a young man sitting across from me interrupted with, "Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but..." which is usually followed with either, "do you know which train I'd need to get to ____?" or "do you know what time it is?" I lifted my head from my writing to acknowledge him and was somewhat surprised when his question was "is it always like this?" I glanced around to try and get some clue as to what he was talking about. I didn't see anything unusual or alarming: a homeless man with a shopping cart walked resolutely down the sidewalk, a few teen-agers huddled together smoking cigarettes against the side of the graffitied convenience store, and the sound of sirens floated from somewhere in the distance. We were on the 8th Street down-town train platform at about 10:00 pm. "You mean like with the shopping carts and stuff?" I asked, examining him more carefully this time. He nodded. Outsider. "Um, yeah," I said, "We call this corner 'Crack Macs'." "Are you serious?!" he asked, paling. Definitely an outsider. Yet, I was surprised by his concern. Deep circles under his eyes indicated pro-longed sleep-deprivation; slightly dirty-looking loose jeans, faux-fur lined skater hoodie, and a faded black baseball cap with a silver spider web embroidered on the front suggested he was some sort of tradesman or construction worker. He blended right in. Curious now, I asked, "Where are you from?" So he told me his story. He'd recently moved to Red Deer from Ontario. He'd come to Calgary this week to do some sight-seeing of sorts. In his own words, "Worst two days of my life." Apparently, his very first day here he was beaten up and robbed of his wallet, which of course contained all his money, ID, credit cards, etc. He reported the crime to city police, but they weren't able to help him. Trying to remember what I'd suggest if I were at the DC, I asked if he'd tried calling Victim's Assistance. "Well," he said, "the police gave me this piece of paper with all these numbers on it. I don't know what they're all for. Man, I was so mad! They gave me the number for a homeless shelter. I went there and there were people sleeping all over the floor. I asked them if they could help me get bus money to go home, because the bus station said they'd sell me a ticket back to Red Deer for $18.50, but they were like, 'We don't do that here, but you can sleep on the floor if you like.' So I was like, 'F*** this, I'm leaving.' And I've been asking people for change for 12 hours, but all I've got is $2.60 so far." Wincing in sympathy, I acknowledged that Calgarians have become pretty closed-fisted since the city population exploded and housing costs shot up, leaving a lot of people homeless and the rest de-sensitized to their pain. "That's cold, man," he shook his head. A plan beginning to form in my head, I inquired when his bus was supposed to leave. "11:30. But there's no way I'll be able to get the money by then," he said glumly, "An' I feel so stupid asking people for change. I'm not a bum. I have a home. I have money. I just can't get to it." I stared off into space, thinking. He cocked his head to the side and waved, "Hello-o." I shook my head, "Sorry. I was just thinking. You said the ticket costs $18?" When he nodded, I told him, "Wait here." Then I swung my bag over my shoulder and walked off. Since he didn't follow me, I walked the few blocks to my bank, listening to see if God would warn me off. Not at all. I withdrew $20 from my account and put it in my pocket. I generally don't carry much cash on me because it's not all that safe of a practice in Calgary...he's definitely an outsider. I walked back to the station and almost didn't see him, but he called to me from below where he was having a cigarette. Discretely pulling the bill from my pocket and handing it to him (it's a good thing no cops were around or it really would have looked like a drug deal), I told him to go home. His face visibly brightening, he said, "Hey, thanks! You have a good heart." Uncomfortable with praise, I shrugged, "Nobody wants to get stranded." Switching topics, I reminded him to make sure he had all his ID and credit cards, etc. canceled ASAP. Grinning, he told me he'd already gotten that done, then waved farewell and started to walk towards the bus depot. "God bless," I called out the abbreviated farewell blessing as an afterthought, and sat back down in the train shelter. A moment later, a knock on the shelter glass interrupted my journal writing a second time. I looked up and found the stranded Red Deerian staring back at me. I got up and went back out to the railing to see what he wanted. "Are you a Christian?" he asked without preamble. "Yes." I waited. "So am I," he said, then stared at his feet, "Well, I used to be, anyway." So then he told me more of his story- what had brought him to Alberta in the first place. He used to be a youth pastor in a very large and televised church in Ontario. "But I was a do-er, not a be-er," he admitted. Like so many church leaders set on a pedestal, he burned out fast and, as he put it, "I decided 'Screw it' and headed west." He was currently working his way back toward God. We talked about church structure leadership demands, about God's forgiveness and grace. As my train approached, he told me his name. "I'm David," he said, holding out his hand. "Faye," I responded, shaking his hand. It was cold. Then, waving farewell, I got on my train, and he walked away toward the bus depot. I wished I'd stayed a little longer to hear more of his story. I trust God got him to the bus depot safely. God spoke to both of us through our chance encounter. And I think the message was essentially the same; to David- "Come home. I'm still watching over you. I love you." To me- "Your heart is good. I'm still with you. I love you." I can love.

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Sunday I drove to Dalhousie to visit my friend Dave at his new church, Harvest Christian Fellowship. Out of boredom or annoyance I've been skipping or ignoring sermons at my own church for months now. I was therefore not prepared when their worship service was interrupted by various church members who freely came to the front and read portions of scripture, devotionals, or sang on-the-spot prophesies and prayers over the group as they felt called by the Spirit. They spoke Ezekiel 11:19 over us, saying that some of us felt dry, dead, and unable to receive God's love, but God would give us new life again if we would prophecy over the deadness. I wouldn't do it, though I wanted to. A tension of opposites. I felt a sudden urge to escape or become invisible. Then they hang out chatting and drink coffee for a while. I escaped to the washroom while Dave went out for a smoke. Wow, it's like High School all over again. I've totally regressed to my previous level of social awkwardness. Rather than trying to talk to someone I didn't know, I sat back down and journaled until the sermon began. It was short- just a blessed 30 minutes- but impactful. The pastor preached on the story of Joseph, son of Israel. Point after point, I felt skewered. He spoke of how we are called to hear the word and to do. To take in and store, then to give to others what we've been given. He talked about how it appears that God in his mercy helped Joseph forget his dream for a time. When he was appointed second in command to pharaoh, he went immediately to work, trusting the authority given him by God and Pharaoh would be accepted wherever he went in Egypt. He forgot his father's house, married the daughter of a priest of Ra, had two sons. He was able to step back and focus on the tasks before him, let his past go, so that when his brothers arrived he was in the right place, the right heart, to live out his dream the way God planned it. I've never really heard Joseph's story like that. And it killed me. Which is good. You see, I've been feeling very stuck in many places in my life right now. Unable to find the motivation to get my school work done, stuck in oscillating states of apathy or depression, unable to stick it out with the young adults at my church after their new pastor quit and they reverted back to their safe weekly bible studies that make me want to scream. I know God told me to be there, told me I needed to teach them some new things, and I have felt no release to give up and go somewhere else. But since I joined the young adults group last winter, I have been completely unsuccessful in fitting in, making myself join them regularly, getting to know them as individuals, or allowing them to know me. I can't lead them, God. They don't trust me (understandably so). Why would they listen to me? They won't, God replied, but they will listen to me.

Philippians 4:13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

So here I am not. Because it's not I who lives, but Christ lives in me. And although I probably do not have the courage to face that whole group and ask their forgiveness for judging them and avoiding them, or to ask the leaders if they'd let me get involved in helping them in whatever God is leading them in, Christ has courage to spare. And although I don't deserve to be accepted to their group after the way I've behaved toward them, they love Christ and welcome him in their midst. And although I still don't know how to balance work, school, family, friends, and church demands, Christ has got rhythm and moves that would put Elvis Presley to shame. "I love you. I love you, do you hear me? Now GET UP!" Trinity commanded Neo, lying shot and bloody on the floor. Neo's eyes opened and he rose to his feet to crush his enemies and return to his heart, his home (Matrix, 1999, Warner Brothers Pictures).

I can love, and I can work.

Another Side of the Moon

2007-11-13T17:26:00.000-08:00

Piece of Glass words and music by Derek Webb and Danielle Young, performed by Caedman's Call, Long Line of Leavers album. Can't believe that I did it again, wake me up from this nightmare 'Cause this monster is wasting me away and taking my days Every day I live a bit less, one night leads to another Even if I went back would they recognize me? or criticize me? Who are you that lies when you stare at my face? Telling me that I'm just a trace of the person I once was 'Cause I just can't tell if you're telling the truth or a lie On you I just can't rely, After all you're just a piece of glass Still I control this nightmare, when I call it answers But I can't tell it when to come or when to stay Don't talk, listen Hold me tighter Stay with me just for a while Until the sun shines stay with me Just give me one more day Who are you that lies when you stare at my face? Telling me that I'm just a trace of the person I once was 'Cause we're not the same, you're just a picture of me You're gone as soon as I leave, you've lived your life for me And you're no more than a piece of glass You're no more than just a piece of glass

If I had the motivation to actually produce a self-portrait today, it would be on a square canvass, produced with watered-down acrylics and gold, silver, red, black, and grey pens. I would paint myself sitting alone, my face devoid of emotion. But no one but my artist would know that fact, because my features are hopelessly blurred and obscured by layers upon layers of words- the endless circling thoughts I can't purge from my mind, even when asleep. It's probably a good thing my thoughts are cyclical- they're the only part of me left that remains three dimensional. The rest of me is flat, faded, and parched- a sun-bleached poster facing out of a neglected shop window.... or one of those creepy spinning blocks at the Toronto Science Centre where four individuals' faces are pasted on four sides of a cube, then the cube is sliced into 3 layers so that eyebrows, eyes and nose, and mouth may be separated and recombined to form facial expressions of the basic human emotions according to the subjective whim of strangers. I don't think I can call this week "depression". The correct clinical term would characterize this short-term experience as "flat affect," which simply means "devoid of or lacking in emotion". "Zoe," Mel, Captain of the Serenity, looks at his second in command, "Are you here?" "To the job, sir," she replies stoically. "Hold, hold until I get back," he requests as much as commands. Her leaf on the wind is gone (Serenity, 2005, Universal Studios). Nothing was. She was not. There was no dark. There was no light. No sight nor sound nor touch nor smell nor taste. No sleeping nor waking. No dreaming, no knowing. Nothing. And then a surge of joy. All senses alive and awake and filled with joy. Darkness was, and darkness was good. As was light. Light and darkness dancing together, born together, born of each other, neither preceding, neither following, both fully being, in joyful rhythm. The morning stars sang together and the ancient harmonies were new and it was good. It was very good. And then a dazzling star turned its back on the dark, and it swallowed the dark, and in swallowing the dark it became dark, and there was something wrong with the dark, as there was something wrong with the light. And it was not good. The glory of the harmony was broken by screeching, by hissing, by laughter which held no merriment but was hideous, horrendous cacophony... "Where are we?" [Charles Wallace] asked, wanting Gaudior to tell him that they were not in his own Where, that this could not possibly be the place of the star-watching rock, of the woods, only a few minutes' walk from the house. Gaudior's words trembled with concern. "We're still here, in your own Where, although it is not yet a real When." "Will it be?" "It is one of the Projections we have been sent to try to prevent. The Echthroi will do everything in their power to make it real." A shudder shook the boy's slight frame as he looked around at the devastated landscape. "Gaudior- what do we do now?" "Nothing. You mustn't loosen your hold on my mane. They want us to do something, and anything we do might be what they need to make this Projection real." "Can't we get away?" The unicorn's ears flicked nervously. "It's very difficult to find a wind to ride when one has been blown into a Projection." -A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978) Madeleine L'Engle, pp. 49-50, 69.

My Many Colored Days (1996) Dr. Seuss, illustrations by Steve Johnson & Lou Fancher

Some days are yellow. Some are blue. On different days I'm different too. You'd be surprised how many ways I change on different colored days. On Bright Red Days how good it feels to be a horse and kick my heels! On other days I'm other things. On Bright Blue Days I flap my wings. Some days, of course, feel sort of brown. Then I feel slow and low, low down. Then comes a Yellow Day. And, WHEEEEEEEEEEE I am a busy, buzzy bee. Gray Day...Everything is gray. I watch. But nothing moves today. Then all of a sudden I'm a circus seal! On my Orange Days that's how I feel. Green Days. Deep deep in the sea. Cool and quiet fish. That's me. On Purple Days I'm sad. I groan. I drag my tail. I walk alone. But when my days are Happy Pink it's great to jump and just not think. Then comes my Black Days. MAD. And Loud. I howl. I growl at every cloud. Then comes a Mixed-Up Day. And WHAM! I doN't KNow wHo or WhaT i aM! But it all turns out all right, you see. And I go back to being...me.

This post is becoming exceedingly long, I know. I won't apologize. I needed to process. But you are permitted to take breaks when your eyes are burning from staring at a glowing screen. A song, a movie, a book, a poem, borrowed words, stolen time. Concentrate. You can do it. It's just a three page paper. And you love thematic analysis. You've had harder assignments in High School. But it has to be perfect and I'm flawed and I'm tired and I can't focus and I'm scared of failing and I can't I can't I can't. It's just...a three...page...paper!!! You're not expected to find every last theme in the book, just the obvious ones. Come on, it's due by the end of the week and you need to be moving onto other things. Jen wants you to come out to the book publishing party tomorrow night. GET IT DONE! Television. I watched five episodes of Hogan's Heroes on Monday night with my parents to honour the war Veterans. Neither my mom nor I had it in us to watch something realistic like Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down. We roared with laughter then it was over, my parents went to bed, and I felt empty again. I sat on the floor with my dog; petted him a long time with Chasey sitting on the floor across from me, doing our best to say good-bye in a language he could understand. He's gone now. My ambivalence about going along for the last ride to the farm was taken out of my hands- my dad took him after work today, while I was at school writing another physiological psychology exam. My mom and I kept asking You to just let him die in his sleep. He wouldn't, despite his inability to swallow water without choking, despite being nothing but bones, oozing slime, and sweaty fur. Dad, Melanie, and Chasey waited out of respect for our wishes, but the hour glass sand poured out in deadly silence. Her leaf on the wind is gone. Maybe it's better this way. I didn't want my last memory of him to be watching his final breath, or touching him in a state of rigor mortise first thing in the morning on my way to breakfast. Still, it seems cowardly to want death so far removed and sterile. It's just an inevitable part of being corporal. You're just a piece of glass... "Faye, let me know ahead of time when you're going to leave. I want to pray for you before you go," Lisa requests. "All right," I agree congenially. I knew she would. That's why I came. Sindy was my prophet before, but now she lives far away and I need someone to hear for me and to tell me what they hear; no coddling, softening, or warping. Because I can't I can't I can't... First she probes my mood. She's checking to make sure there's still a range into the positive. Oddly rapid cycles of emotion for me, but, Yes. It's like a Monet- splatters of blurry colours everywhere, but there is range, I assure her. She smiles and I smile back. Messy is her word. Silence. She listens. I'm trying to do the same, I really am. Why did I write Joshua 7:13 on the wall? What's causing this fatigue? What if I'm re-living Amy's journey of visiting endless streams of doctors who all tell her the same thing: it's stress-related and really there's nothing wrong with me and I'm becoming a hypochondriac when I just need to trust God more? What if I have brain cancer and God tells me I can't seek medical treatment- I just need to have faith that He'll remove it? What if I'm supposed to be following that British spiritual teacher's advice (what is his name again? Nolan would know. Nolan has his instructional c-ds) and giving away whatever it is I need so God can play a one-up game with me and give me even more back and the only reason I'm feeling and doing so poorly is because I'm not playing right? I can't I can't I can't At last, the verdict: "I'm seeing a picture of...confusion. Your mind: a dark, swirling mass of...thoughts. But not in a healthy, processing way- chaotic." She looks at me for confirmation. "Yes!" I said, surprised and relieved. Not surprised that God told her, surprised at his answer. One sentence to sum up what I took at least ten minutes trying to describe without knowing what it really was. Normally I'm so good at sorting, labelling, and summarizing my internal being, but this time I couldn't. Lisa commands the chaos to still, to rest, to quiet. It sort of does. Lisa and Angie together: getting a sense of how much God adores you. You're so beautiful, so cherished by Him. He doesn't want anything of you, he just wants you to be still in his presence, to rest and be healed. Angie instructs me to lie down on a pillow, listen to a song she has in her head from God for me. Usually it skips but we'll see what happens. No skippage. No idea who the artist was, or what album it came off of, or the title of the song...but the chorus skips on in my head, "You are the pearl He came to find. You are the pearl He came to find." A single tear slips down my cheek and I stare at the ceiling. Why am I always the one in need of healing? Why can't I be done with this and stop wasting people's time and energy? I hate making people worry about me, hate always taking, hate being the joy sucker. I'm a black hole in space. You are the pearl He came to find. You are my treasure. The gates of heaven will be made of pearls. I was incredulous when I first read that. I couldn't understand why. There are so many prettier gems God could use for the giant gates to His city. "Pearls are formed through the suffering of an innocent," Pastor Mark informed his congregation back in the days when there still was one to preach to. "They're pieces of gravel or dirt that are stuck in the shell of an oyster, who is unsuccessful at spitting them out. The gravel gets rolled over and over in the oyster's mouth, getting coated in the same phosphorescent white coating as the inside of the oyster's shell. Sometimes the dirt or gravel gets in accidentally, other times humans 'plant' the particles in the oyster intentionally so they can later 'harvest' pearls for retail." Christ is our oyster. Sounds like a t-shirt motto. You are the pearl He came to find. I don't know what to do with that. "Basically, praise God for who He is, and come before Him. Let Him sit on your praises. Let Him be crowned King over all of you, your mind, time, emotions, your heart. The door will open, and then cry out to Him, and he will hear you. Have faith and claim the promises He's given you in His Word. Don't let Satan tempt you to despair. Don't believe any lies. Find the Truth and claim it because Jesus died for you to live in freedom. Don't let anything pull you away from reading the Living Word every day, no matter what you feel like," Amy wrote the same week. And again, "Christ needs to dwell in our hearts through faith. Everything you are doing is out of love. When that love [is absent from?] your heart, your spirit is detroned by your mind [and] we so quickly get stressed and wonder 'what is all this for?' And we are such creative people...and very special. You are very important to God, Faye, and you have something very important to do for His glory. Pray what this means: Trust the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. I just hear God saying...be in tune with your spirit. Do not look to the world, but to God's heart. He's given you an amazing mind to grasp things, but your heart must come first or else you will fall. And just remember the first commandment: To love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength soul mind. But pray about what exactly this means. Surrender to his presence. The Holy Spirit is with you right now. He is as much God as the Father and the Son seated in heaven. God is with you! And He wants you to know Him more and discover who He is and to make your heart like His."

Joshua 7:13 "Get up! Command the people to purify themselves in preparation for tomorrow. For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Hidden among you, O Israel, are things set apart for the LORD. You will never defeat your enemies until you remove these things from among you."

The Moment

2007-11-05T19:57:00.000-08:00

"Upon pinching our pale skin, a barely audible question escapes from our mouth: 'How are we doing?' Silence. We listen to our breathing- it is shallow and pathetic. 'Are we all right?' Slowly we shake our head. We don't want to speak- not today anyway. 'Morning,' we whisper. The word flickers in our consciousness. 'How are we feeling today?' 'Not the best,' is the apathetic reply. 'Today's going to be another bad one,' we say stoically. We feel the violence of the vortex gather pace as it screams inside our body. We twist through its complexity and pound on our corporal self. As usual, questions concerning its authenticity bob up and down in our sea of pain. How do we really feel? The word doesn't describe our feelings- does it? Surely it's unimaginable to those who have not suffered with it? People walking down the street, students, friends-whatever-nonchalantly spew it out. It seems that the word, like a slug slithering innocuously through language and culture, leaves little trace of its intrinsic malevolence. Has it become so common in everyday language? Has it lost its depth, its meaning, and its feeling? Has it been hammered into banality? we think. As always, however, we struggle for answers while our mind becomes a cesspool of ominous thoughts. We become swamped in our(selves). The torture continues in our head. How can life be filled with such torpid indifference? The little things like taking our dog for a walk in the park on a warm spring day or playing football with our friends just aren't fun anymore. We breathe and walk, we just don't live. We are detached and hollow. Under our blanket of suffocating darkness, we pretend that everything is fine, yet, we rot away from the inside. At times it spews bits out. At times it swallows us whole. At times both. No warning, bang! We move from pain to pain. We have only one future. Please God, help, we plead as our huddled body rocks back and forth. Confused and afraid, we don't want to talk anymore. 'Please leave,' we gently sob." -The Abyss: Exploring Depression Through a Narrative of the Self (1999) Brett Smith, in Qualitative Inquiry, Vol. 5, No. 2, p. 265. "I got the letter," said Marcus flatly, "Thanks." Marcus' mother covered her mouth in embarrassment: "I forgot." "You forgot?! You wrote a suicide letter!" Marcus exploded incredulously. "Well," Marcus mother threw a furtive glance in his direction, "I didn't think I'd have to remember it, did I?" Breaking the ensuing awkward silence, Marcus mother inquired tentatively, "Did you read the part where I said I'd always love you?" "It's a bit hard to love me when you're dead, isn't it?!" "Sorry." Coming to sit across from him, she said, "I can understand why you're angry, Marcus...but," she shrugged, "I don't feel the same as I did yesterday, or the day before that." "What? It's all just gone away? All that?" Marcus' eyebrow lifted in disbelief. "Well, no," admitted Marcus' mother gently, "But, at the moment, I feel better." "The moment's no good to me," exclaimed Marcus angrily, "I can see you're better at the moment. But what happens when you finish your tea?" -About a Boy (2002) Universal Pictures, starring Hugh Grant. So, God granted my wish this time. Please, please don't let anyone find me. I swear I'm not suicidal, I'm just depressed... and crying so hard that every dead leaf and blade of grass surrounding my hidden sanctuary along the river bank is slimy with tears and snot... and I would totally call EMS immediately if I found someone in my present emotional state sitting alone this close to the Bow River... Weird. I can see the bridge where my High School art teacher stopped a woman from drowning herself in the night from here. She wasn't especially grateful for the intervention. I wasn't even there and I can hear her screaming for him to leave her alone, pushing away rescue, fighting for freedom from another day spent in the Abyss. "How are you doing, Faye?" my professor asked at our meeting that afternoon. I don't want to answer that question. Not to her. Not to myself. Not to anyone. Not again. In most urban places in North America, when someone asks, "What's up?" or "How're you doing?" the standard, polite response is: "Fine" or "All right" or "Okay." In the university culture, we don't like to stoop to such trite and mindless responses. Instead, our sophisticated and suave automatic responses include complicated combinations of: "Tired" and/or "Busy," smoothly expressed with either a hint of amused self-recrimination or martyr-like patience. Particularly in the small Christian college I attend, we're a sleep-deprived, financially-strapped, stressed-out lot. And proud of it. Among our favourite pass-times, we like to have one-up competitions to see who is writing the most papers, has the hardest professor to please, is working the most volunteer and part-time (or full-time) jobs on the side, taking the most courses simultaneously, borrowing the most money from the government, surviving on the most free coffee and bread hand-outs at school, dealing with the worst personal crises, etc. Then we roll our eyes at each other, laugh, and go check our cell-phone messages, e-mail, MSN, blog-site, or facebook account to do the same thing over again. The U of C is selling brilliant minds to deserving corporations right now, did you notice? But my professor looks at me when she asks that question. "I'm...tired." I look down at the floor and try to will my throat not to close on me. She's still looking at me. I don't want to shatter I don't want to shatter I don't want to shatter. She gets up, closes the door to her office, returns her seat, looks at me. "Ok, so what's really going on?"

My throat closes and I shatter.

She offers me a box of kleenex. She gives me a three week extension on the next part of my research project, and gives me pointers on how to succeed on assignments and exams for my other classes. She wants me to see the school counsellor, book an appointment with my GP- maybe I'm depressed or maybe I have low vitamin B, take the night off and spend some quality time with a good friend- tell them how I'm doing over some really good cheesecake. She reminds me of the importance of "self-care". I know this stuff. I give nearly identical variations of it to family members, friends, and complete strangers every week when we talk about anxiety, stress, loneliness, or the "d" word. "Your work is excellent, Faye," she says emphatically, waving the third draft of my research proposal to be submitted to the ethics review board at me. "You have a natural ability. I look at you and I see a young woman who, for the first time in the five years I've known her, is defeated: you're defeated in your own mind." I nod. I know she's right. I came to the same conclusion the day before while walking home alone from the c-train. In psychology, we call it "learned helplessness," which is the belief that no matter what you do (or don't do) you can't avoid failure. You have no control over your future. This is not a normal pattern of thinking for me. But this time, I just don't see a way out. I can't concentrate to do my work because I'm exhausted and I'm too afraid of failing at anything I actually start. I've already cut back on pretty much everything there is to cut from one's social life: I go to work for one shift a month and I volunteer for 2 shifts per month. I've stopped going to church, I choose one friend to hang out with for an evening every two weeks. I don't bother eating lunch. My exercise has been reduced to a 4 block daily walk with my arthritic and cancer-ridden dog who frequently needs to stop for rests. I'm perfectly aware that it is illogical for me to be so panicked about doing poorly on my assignments: I can count on one hand (a genetically modified hand with six or seven fingers instead of five) the number of instances I have scored less than 80% on something. It's just that 4 of those times occurred within the last year, and two of those within the last two months of my life, after I studied my heart out. I failed my first attempt at a driver's license a year ago (which tends to happen when you nearly mow down pedestrians and can't remember what to do at a four way stop), failed to make the school soccer team last year, barely passed the GRE, and barely passed my first unit exam in physiological psychology. Now, some of you are rolling your eyes and thinking of all sorts of geeky losers who claim to have done "terribly" on an exam, which for them means 70%. While I understand how this is ludicrous (and rude) to someone who feels fortunate if they can get a 70%, you need to understand that (1) psychology is easy and everyone in the program has a minimum average of 78% and (2) because psychology is easy and tends to pay a great deal, graduate programs weed out the students they don't have enough room for by demanding extremely high academic scores and practical experience. It's all or nothing stakes for geeks not quite smart enough for engineering, computer programming, astrophysics, or the biological sciences. And I realized suddenly that although my long-term life plans remain desirable to me, I really don't want to live through the next five years to get there. I also suddenly realized that I didn't have anyone to talk to- at least, no one available on the spur of the moment to just go for a two hour walk, chat, and a mocha (I work once a month- I can't afford cheesecake:). And I'm lonely. Which I feel ashamed to say, because for the first time in my life I have really loyal, genuine friends who are always asking me when we can hang out next and genuinely want to know how I'm doing. If I'm lonely this time, it's my own fault. And I'm ashamed of my fear. My head knows that God will be with me wherever I go, that I'm never alone, that God will give me what I need to be, go, and do what he wants. My head knows he wants more than just "fine," "okay," "tired," "busy," or the dreaded "depressed" for me. But I can't envision it in my future. And I sure as hell can't feel it in the present moment, though not for lack of effort on God's part to get it through to me: he had my friend Jen W. send me an email telling me I'd been on her mind and prayers lately and inviting me out to a nerdy artists fest (artists are great fun and I admit I really miss that scene), he had Amy send me a card and a carefully chosen assortment of gifts all the way from Scotland, he reminded me that these phases don't last forever by crossing my path with other people even more depressed than I am who felt encouraged after talking to me, he gave my mom time to go out for ice-cream with me, he gave me a phone call from Val, and a mid-night logical but sympathetic chat with my sister Melanie, and countless on-line gifts and hellos from friends like Jen F, Melanie Roe, Lisa, and others wondering where the duece I've gone. He gave me a tender moment while hugging my borrowed niece, Rylee, and a pretty sunset tonight before the familiar feelings of dread and hopelessness took me over in the sun-light's absence. He gave me an "I'm sorry to hear that" from Jordan, who really meant it, when I gave him the abbreviated version at Trevor and Melissa's wedding (which was incredibly entertaining, by the way). Actually, God regularly gives me beautiful and fun moments with my siblings, parents, and friends. And I appreciate them and am trying really hard to live in those moments when they come my way. They're just hard to hold on to while the rest of me reads the newspaper and nearly pukes because some cocaine addicted prostitutes in Vancouver decided to torture their friend for hours with a box cutter until she died. At this moment, I'm tired, I have a head-ache, I feel melancholy, and I'm disappointed with myself for not getting more accomplished today. My thoughts seem sluggish, fragmented, and ambivalent. But it's just a moment, and maybe the next one will be different.

Change My Name

2007-10-01T16:39:00.000-07:00

First, I need to apologize for my previous post. I've talked with a few people about my misgivings and each one told me that it was my blog and it was my right to express myself however I want. I don't care. I meant the part about suddenly seeing myself as Christ's biggest slut, but I could have said that without drawing my friend into the illustration. My camping story was purely for shock value, and to make myself look more spiritual than I really am. I'm really sorry about that. So...Oktober's post, with a nod to modern German diaspora culture...

Change My Name

I'm restive again tonight, God. So I walk. A fast walk. Long, Confident, Powerful strides; the emulation of Purpose and Importance, carrying me away to nowhere. Because I have no goal except to walk, and I know where every street leads in a ten kilometer radius. My parents' fear binds me to that limit, not unreasonably so. It's the northeast and walking alone at night just isn't safe. So I remain. My body encaged in 30 minutes, like the fire that always smolders but never consumes me from the inside out. I want my muscles to burn like my emotions do.

I go looking for a fight and You gave me one, once. At least the cold wind cooled off my face, if not this ever-present anger. It was a good storm God, but I wish You'd have sent rain. I wanted to be soaked. Cold showers just aren't the same. But if they can't get relief from Stanley Hall's Durmstrang and Durmstrong then neither shall I. Twisted metal and mutilated shopping carts stolen from the world's capitalistic retailers lie in piles along every street from Temple to Sunridge. Proud Monuments attesting to the raw passion of Youth, and the lack of identity or direction thereof.

Do you ever feel like a moving target for an unseen enemy? I didn't. At least, not until Dave suggested to me that following God leaves us with marks So every son of the devil and his snake can read your name and know EXACTLY who you are in Christ. Throw

Down

Your

Gauntlet. 'Cause them 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 is fightin' words.

Saul became Paul, Sarai became Sarah, Abram became Abraham, Simon became Peter, and when Jacob had a wrestling match with an angel and became Israel, his hip was put out of joint. So's mine. But I don't know if I really want to ask God for a name change. Marilyn means “bitter,” being a derivation of Mara, whom Naomi became after drought and an alien land took her home, husband, and both of her sons. But it's been in the family for three generations now and I hate to break tradition. Faye means “faith” and it's the name I use for all things practical. Archer implies a soldier with more than one good eye to see a war clearly and act on it with deadly precision. Maybe this means God won't change my name until I get married. Hope at last.

Still, Sindy became Bubba unofficially, and I want to know: what does that sign on my forehead say, God?

It's a crop circle, of course. It says: “You are mine, all mine, yes, you are. (muah, muah, muah, muah).”

The Biggest Slut Since Gomer

2007-09-10T19:47:00.001-07:00

Last Thursday one of my friends (I will call her "Betty") called me up and asked if I wanted to come camping with her and some of her friends. I thought, Sweet! One last camping hurrah before I spend the next eight months seeking ulcer treatment due to stress. Plus, Betty and I were not able to reconcile schedules much during the summer and I had missed hanging out with her. So I accepted. She told me the details were on facebook and, being a now somewhat experienced tent-camper, I knew it'd be wise to find out where we were going so I could check the weather and pack appropriate clothing. I checked on Friday morning. The description for this innocent little diversion read, "Camping at Bow Valley: Shit happens when you party naked. Clothing optional." Riiiight. Fortunately, the thing about Betty is, when she says stuff like that she's really only half-kidding. Well, this will be interesting...

Friday afternoon I left my family a vague note letting them know where I was going and asking them to pray for me. Then we packed my stuff into Betty's truck and headed out to pick up the other party planner, a cool young woman I will call "Suzy". Grinning as we were introduced, Suzy reassured me that even though they'd accidentally invited all 400 people on their facebook friend lists, they were pretty sure only about 10 other people (mostly guys) would come out. Well, camping was interesting.

Just not in the way you're expecting. I never did figure out where Bow Valley was so I packed clothing in accordance with Calgary's forecast. Apparently, Bow Valley is in the mountains. It was cold. And wet. We were cold. And wet. And, thank you merciful God, alone. The miserable weather (and subsequent text messaging) deterred all but two of Suzy's friends, a very fun couple who drove all the way out in Saturday night's hail so they could bring Suzy some hot chocolate in a thermos (we forgot to bring either a kettle or a pot for cooking things) and hang out with us around the camp fire for a few hours as it poured. I should mention that the fire wasn't ours. In addition to scaring off Betty and Suzy's plethora of potential weekend suitors, God provided us with some super cool pseudo-parents who looked out for us the whole weekend.

This is how we met them: "Wow, nice choice!" said the girl at registration admiringly when we finally found our way there. "You know, people have fist fights over this spot during the summer. Well, have fun!" After just a few wrong turns we found our spot...and someone in it. They were registered for a spot with the same number but in a different section of the camp ground. After some debate over the ethics of throwing someone out of a spot which they had mistakenly taken, Betty got out of the truck and knocked politely on their trailer. A minute or two later, a man who looked to be a little older than my dad swaggered out, insisting with some irritation that Betty call "the girlie" at registration about it because he was in the right spot. He soon conceded defeat, however, and a few minutes later he and his wife drove out to find their proper spot. With the exception of a tent cover more than twice the size of our tent for which we couldn't figure out the intended direction for the life of us, we set up quite easily and were just beginning to build a fire when the man we had recently evicted strode up. Looking rather abashed, he introduced himself and told us his wife had sent him to apologize for being rude and mean. Repairs were easily made and he invited us to come visit them at their new site some time.

We did, the next morning. After listening with much amusement and sympathy as Betty and Suzy regaled "Matt" and his wife, "Sharon," with stories of past parties and relationships, poor Matt choked on his twizzler when they mentioned that they had invited all 400 of their facebook acquaintances. "Four hundred strange men invited to come party naked with three single girls at a campsite?!" he spluttered, "Thank God I never had daughters!" Thus, in addition to serving us candy and hot chocolate, sending us back to our campsite with cedar kindling he cut for us (our ax head fell off its handle while I was using it to cut kindling), setting up a log-cabin for fire-starting while we were off on a walk, and coming to offer us the shelter of their trailer for as long as needed when our tents became incurably drenched with rain and hail Saturday night (we also forgot to bring a tarp), Matt also made it his mission to come check and make sure we weren't being equally deluged with jerk men and gave us no less than 6 very firm but kind lectures on the dangers of giving out such invitations to so many male acquaintances because, "Being one myself, I know- men are dirty asses!" Betty also received no less than 3 very kind but firm lectures on the dangers of driving 140 km/hr in a 4X4 truck on the highway while simultaneously changing the track on her stereo and typing/reading text messages to/from her boyfriend. Betty just laughed at him but was very touched by their concern, nonetheless.

Anyways, so I'll bet you're wondering what this grand adventure has to do with the long-dead prostitute wife of Hosea. Um, well, the connection struck me when Sharon commented, with much awe and admiration after hearing many Betty party/relationship stories, "Wow, you're a bitchy slut!" Sharon didn't mean it as an insult and Betty didn't take it as one. But that didn't make it an inaccurate description, much to my discomfort. I know you’re more than this Betty, but at the moment I don’t have a clue what you should be.

I've tried many times to analyze why Betty and I are friends. We really have very little in common apart from years of shared company, but even that is bizarre given that we've never attended the same school or lived in the same neighbourhood. Betty and I share a common love of animals, reading (usually not the same books), ancient Celtic culture, and 3 movies (The Princess Bride, Clueless, and 10 Things I Hate About You). That’s about it. And I am never more acutely aware of our differences than when we hang out with Betty’s other friends and I get to hear and experience the unedited versions of her dramatic life stories. Her life choices frequently make me sad for her. It’s hard to watch her destroy herself, convinced it’s her destiny and identity to do so. It’s hard to watch her take the same path as her mother, whom she despises. It’s even harder to realize and admit how similar we are under the surface.

Amy came to visit for a few weeks this summer. She’s been struggling through many random physical ailments with no apparent causes and was in a substantial amount of pain pretty much the entire time she stayed with us. One night as she lay awake crying from a particularly excruciating episode, she began confessing some things to God and pleaded yet again with him to take the pain away. The pain did lessen significantly then and God told her to go back to sleep. She described it as “falling asleep in the arms of Jesus.” I felt convicted the moment she finished telling me this story. I fall asleep almost every night by imagining myself in the comforting strength of my husband’s arms. The problem is, at the moment, I have no husband apart from God himself. If I consider my self to be a part of the Church, who is described as being the bride of Christ, then I’m the biggest slut since Hosea’s wife, Gomer. What a repulsive thought. Quite fortunately, neither Betty nor I are condemned to our slut personas forever. Since Christ died for us, knowing full well what “bitchy sluts” we’d be to him, we can find a new identity in Christ. And, like the hoochy Gomez, I too must begin with repentance, walking away from the lovers I don’t belong to and returning to the one who knows my heart, mind, soul, and body intimately and loves me unconditionally.

Riding In Cars Without Boys and Other Cathartic Philosophical Musings of an Urban Gypsy

2007-08-15T14:21:00.000-07:00

My life has become something of an incomprehensible jumble of traveling from work to volunteering to visiting one friend or another for crisis management or fun with an occasional stop at home to restock clothes and meds and usually one day a week at home to get caught up on errands and studying (in theory, anyways). Consequently, this post is a series of mostly unrelated topics which you can read through or skip over at your leisure because my primary motivation for writing is simply to try to sort out my muddled thoughts. Lobbying for Social Justice, Simplified Starting now and running until the end of December, the Alberta government is taking public input on how it should spend it's money in 2008. To make this easier, the government has a web-site explaining how the 2007 budget was allocated and offering an on-line poll regarding how you believe the 2008 provincial budget should be distributed. It doesn't take very long to fill out, being mainly ranking-type questions with a few spaces for written comments. If you're confused about what each category would include (as I was), read through the whole survey first-most categories list a few general components. For example, apparently "infrastructure" includes not only roads but also schools and hospitals. Guys, you can call me a geek all you want to but I was soooooo excited when someone introduced this web-site to me. I have this "guilt list" on my fridge, which has been reminding me all summer that I ought to write well-researched papers on social justice issues ranging from my peeves with everything from housing issues to health care and education to the environment. My rants are directed as follows: (1) To the municipal government for failure to (a) put out a temporary rent cap, (b) failure to put a moratorium on destroying low-cost housing down-town to build luxury condos and apartments instead, and (c) failure to either build its own subsidized housing or allow the Mustard Seed to build subsidized housing on the down-town land proposed. (2) To the provincial government for (a) putting a cap on wind energy and allowing tar-sands development despite complaints from local residents that their water sources are being poisoned with methane gas as a result and (b) for limiting entry to special needs schools for the disabled only to those with severe physical disabilities (due to the new Amber rating system) and (c) the insufficient financial support afforded to those on AISH or fleeing from abusive relationships or the professionals expected to help them. (3) To the federal government for charging foreigners huge amounts of money to enter our country and then not allowing them to use their degrees in health care, education, and industry once they've arrived, thereby impoverishing them and maintaining worker shortages. Anyways, all these things can be directed to the provincial government without the inconvenience of buying postage. Even if they refuse to accept responsibility for various issues themselves, the provincial government will at least be motivated to lay the buck on someone else and the issues should (hopefully) still receive attention somewhere. Terrifying the Paramours Funny story. So my cute little sister Melanie has been un-dating this guy from work for months now. If you're wondering what the term "un-dating" could possibly mean, then let me clarify: it means you're guess is as good as ours and unless you want to be ninja-kicked to the South Pacific then you should neither ask Melanie to define the relationship nor attempt to label it for her. Back to my story: The Un-dated came to our door last night to pick up Melanie so the two of them could go out for dessert at BP. My dear, friendly, hospitable mother told him she was going to go get some grass-hopper pie for me and her self and asked him if he'd like to come in for some as well, then proceeded to walk out the door. She laughed until she couldn't breathe at his stupefied facial expression of horror and after retrieving the dessert from the second fridge we have in our garage, left Melanie to explain that Grass Hopper Pie is actually a green-coloured chocolate and mint marshmallow square. This, of course, comes the night after our dad jokingly gave The Un-dated some fine dating advice and nearly caused the Un-dated's brain to explode with wonder at the first dad ever to encourage him in a serious relationship with his daughter. Before you get the false impression that this is an evil conspiracy by our parents to stun unsuspecting prospective paramours into marrying their children, let me assure you that it's truly a full-family venture. Nolan, for example, gleaned suggestions for over 50 intrusive and ridiculous-want-to-get-to-know-you-better-competition questions to ask his girlfriend from each of his siblings plus 3 of his under-age cousins (Ben, Adam, and Joel). Riding in Cars Without Boys On Thursday night, I drove out to a very young, beautiful, small city just out-side Edmonton with a friend, whom I will call Sarah (because every girl and her ferret is named Sarah). We stayed with Sarah's parents until Monday to celebrate her young son's birthday. We will call her son Matt (because every man and his dog is named Matt). Matt, along with Sarah's daughter, are staying with their grandparents for a few weeks so they can go to a Christian camp nearby and give Sarah a much needed break from the life of single parenting. The party was fun, I was delighted to find out that despite my incompetency fears I am capable of playing with children of a variety of ages for more than 10 minutes without accidentally killing them (ok, ok, so I wasn't the one responsible for planning games this time...), and I enjoyed the lively chaos so reminicent of my own family's gatherings. I was very proud of Sarah, too: despite her dire predictions of a total emotional breakdown over having her wallet (and potentially her identity) stolen Friday morning, the said melt-down never occurred and her stress was poured logically into contacting the proper authorities as soon as possible. Still, Sarah and I were both ready to escape to the quiet and freedom of the open road home Monday, and after a few unforeseen delays we did. Long, unchallenging car rides, like time spent in the bathroom, are highly conducive to thinking about the more convoluted matters in life, and this particular drive had Sarah gravely musing alternately about the abusive and controlling relationship her "baby" sister has decided to remain in and Sarah's continued inability to find a willing Christian man to act as a mentor to her very difficult-to-handle young son. The topics sound disparate, but they're not; Sarah's brother-in-law is the sort of man Sarah used to be married to and is terrified her own son will one day become if not turned from his present course. I grieved with her. Matt's lack of mentorship is not due to negligence on Sarah's part. After her former fiance decided that he could not conscionably marry her when he doesn't love her children, Sarah has asked men- responsible married fathers -at 3 different churches if they would act as a mentor just for an hour or two once a week to her son. Each time she was promised, "Oh, yes, yes, oh course we'll help you," then the brave male spiritual leader would meet with her son once or never at all. Sarah's own good-natured father has no patience for Matt and therefore spends no time with him; likewise, Sarah's beloved but busy brother has never paid any significant attention to Matt when he's around. Not even counting Matt's biological dad (who has "forgotten" to send child support payments 2 months in a row yet again), that makes 6 good Christian men who failed to meet the obvious need of a young boy for a father figure. Now, I will be the first to admit that I am no Arwyn or Guinevere, but this case and many others like it beg the question: Where are the Aragorns and Lancelots of the world, the leaders who fight for a cause greater than themselves and make it a priority to train less experienced hobbits and warriors to do the same? Where are the wise and venerable old Sages and Druids like Getafix in The Adventures of Asterix and Obelix or Old Rafiki in Lion King or Gandalf the Grey in The Lord of the Rings? They do exist- I have been greatly blessed to know a few. But they are a few and they're typically stretched to the limit doing the work of 20 men. I don't want this story to end in despair. Despair is not from God. We prayed for Sarah's sister and brother-in-law, then I offered to read John Elridge's The Way of the Wild Heart. I've felt like I was supposed to introduce Sarah to this book for some time. I bought this book because (a) it was on sale and (b) the question of where boys learn to become men when their own father is absent, insufficient, or down-right harmful has been increasingly on my mind for the last few years, especially since some of my newer best friends (like Sarah) are mothers to sons. I read through the intro, then chapters 1, 2, and 3 before my voice was so raw I couldn't read any more. Sarah drove and cried and occasionally made some comment to the effect of: "Ah, I don't think that applies only to men" or "My son is doomed, isn't he?" In his book, Elridge states that boys must go through a series of stages in life to attain true masculinity, and that mastering each stage requires initiation by other more experienced men. He moreover charges that most boys and men today (at least in the western world) are lacking in initiation, and are for all practical purposes fatherless orphaned half-men/boys in men's bodies with men's responsibilities. Hence the "My son is doomed" comment from Sarah. But Elridge isn't a dooms-day prophet: he also proposes that God is our true Father and can teach boys how to be men and warriors and kings and lovers and wise sages using challenges, daily hassles, and people around them. And that thought actually connects to my final muse. Read on, Bravehearts. Houdini It's been a good summer. Really. The last time I've played so much without trying to be 19 peoples' best friend was in grade 3. And I don't think I've ever had so little fear about being able to pay for the next year's tuition since I began University 4 years ago. I've enjoyed visits from 3 old friends (Denise, Amy, and Val); I held my new-born baby niece, proudly christened Rylee Anne Oash by her parents Jeana and Tyler; I went on my first independent camping trip with Charis to the GIC Young Adults summer tenting excursion in the Waiporous/Ghost River area of the foothills (yes, complete with the traditional getting lost component); I had my first taste of planning and experiencing a back-packing trip in the mountains when Nolan, Samantha, Chasey and I had a sibling bonding trip at Ribbon Falls (so beautiful there); I was privileged to attend my friend Skye's private opera recital (she's amazing); I went to the Calgary zoo and got to once again experience wonder at the mysteries of captive nature with my friend Mel, two of her rambunctious sons, and her uber-cute baby-sitting charges; my friend Jen took me on a short road trip to a place I'd never been before where I attended a treasure hunt birthday party and saw the Lippizaner dancing horses perform; I waded the moat at Riley Park to have an island picnic lunch with Tachae; I painted a fence with my friend Mel; I played blind tag at a pool party with Jen, her kids, and my boss, Dale; I've seen Shakespeare in the Park's Tragedy of MacBeth twice- once with Melanie and her son Brady, then again with Amy after we had dinner at Abruzzo's Italian; on a whim I drove to Cochrane with Melanie and two of her sons to eat at a restaurant I've never been to (Sage Bistro), where I had a lunch I'd never tried before (lamb burger); I helped my dad and younger brother build our deck one morning; I weeded 4 rows of our garden for my mom one afternoon; I attended the Archer-Reist family reunion where I taught distant relatives how to play greased watermelon football and was invited to sleep-over at my cousin Laurie's house; I went children's book shopping at Word's Worth second hand book store; I taught myself how to use an electric hedge trimmer at my boss' house; I took Jen's kids for an exploration of the river banks of Glenmore Park in the pouring rain; I saw Pirates of the Caribbean 3 for the first time with Jen and Dale and for the first time with my whole family; my friend Laurie took me for my first experience of the Calgary Folk Music Festival, where I fell in love with the music of groups I'd never heard of before like Hawksley Workman, Sarah Sleen, and Moshav; I saw the very excellent Bourne Ultimatum with Nolan, Andy, RJ, Jen, and Nathan last night; I visited the Cross Roads Farmer Market and it's Art Space Gallery with my parents (Richard Freely's kinetic sculptures remain my favourite); along with my dad I've read Harry Potter I, II, III, and IV; on a bright, sunny afternoon I saw The Passion Play for the first time in Drumheller with my parents, Nolan, Andy, and Sherry, after which we tried out dinner at The Green Olive Italian where I tried mango curry chicken pasta; I've begun reading John Elridge's The Way of the Wild Heart and Punk Monk by Andy Freeman and Pete Greig, the former due to the coinciding of a sale and a long-held desire and the latter on a whim from God; I've gone for specialty icecream at Ice Zone with my parents, Chasey, and Samantha (I chose the Canadian Moose flavour); I finally got my driver's license; I climbed a ropes course with my sister Sam and mom at the YMCA camp in the mountains; I sat right up front on the curb to watch the Stampede Parade with Jen, her kids, and her daughter's friend; I went on nearly ever adult ride on the Stampede Midway with Sam before her shift at 5 (our favourite was The Himalayas with the bubbles- wow I'm getting old); Mel and her family took me out for Vietnamese and then to see the Hong-Kong fireworks at Global Fest (indescribably fantastic); I played in an out-door soccer game with Melanie's husband's brother's team (woo-hoo!); I hung out with Jen Fietz at Jono's annual birthday bbq fun-ness, where Nolan gave us a practical demonstration of the altruistic tendencies of ants; I bought 4 new c-ds and was given a cool mixed c-d by Nolan; and I'm going to visit my grandparents in Didsbury with Nolan tomorrow. God, I'm spoiled. So why don't I feel happy? Because I'm Houdini. Or maybe Houdini's messed-up protege, since I'm always trying to escape perfectly safe and pleasant situations, as opposed to dangerous and discomfiting ones. Stress, boredom, apathy, and disappointment can all be left behind, perhaps in a fictitious book, or in a movie, or even in the stories in my head. Oddly though, for all my imagination I still can't pretend myself happy in any other life. Instead, I cry out with Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5):

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it's a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

I'm sure it's not good to empathize with that passage. MacBeth was a traitorous murderer who consulted witches and evil spirits for his ruling decisions. He deserved all the trouble he got and more. But 'consulted with witches and evil spirits' catches my mind's eye. Evil spirits informed MacBeth that he would never be killed by any man born of a woman and MacBeth fancied himself immortal. We're so fascinated with the idea of the invulnerable un-dead: I am both a zombie and a vampire on facebook. The emo girl sitting in front of Amy and me at MacBeth had a sparkly twin red cherries barrette with a silver skull on one of the cherries. I was simultaneously repulsed and attracted to it- what a great symbol of both life and death. Yet, there's something deceitful about half-life, and Amy stomped her foot on it well: "I hate that emo stuff! You have to choose!" She's right, you know. When Moses brought the 10 commandments down from Mt. Sinai, he gave the Israelites an ultimatum, a choice of being that would lead either to life or to death. Not both. And remember Banquo's early warning to Macbeth (Act 1, Scene 3):

"But 'tis strange; and oftentimes to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray's in deepest consequence."

True, no man born of a woman killed Macbeth. But a man taken from his mother by cesarean section could and did. The helpful little demons failed to mention that possibility to him. So where is the half-truth, more accurately termed a half-lie, in escapism? The answer calls...from Narnia, one of my favourite fantasy lands to which I escape. One of the most profound but over-looked details of both C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series is that no matter how amazing and action-packed the magical adventure is, by the end of the book the children heroes still always have to return to the world we call 'real'. The trick, according to Aslan, is learning to recognize Aslan's different form in the real world. And it is tricky. It's so easy to love that great, good lion in Narnia. Amy loved him long before she ever became a Christian. My little brother still reads the Narnian Chronicles, which are coloured in metaphors of biblical truth, over and over again, despite his deeply held conviction that "God is a bastard" since only a negligent God could leave the world to hang itself in evil and misery. Why do they have to go back? Why do I have to go back? For all the real world's mini pleasures, there's also a lot of starving children, oppression, injustice, and suffering. Even if I don't experience it directly, I still feel it. Like Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, I feel the weight of it crushing me, blinding me to everything else and closing me off until there's nothing buffering between me and the evil eye. I have no hope of returning to my carefree childhood garden. All I see before me is suffering in darkness. And while I'm committed and driven irreversibly to complete my task, it's not something I'm looking forward to. Amy told me that when she was at her most sick this year- physically, emotionally, and spiritually- she asked God to please just let her die so she could go be with him and not have to stay here where everything is dead. As Denise pointed out, this is the essence of emo culture: depression with atrophying apathy. Well, God refused to kill Amy off. In fact, he rebuked her for asking. He told her she needed to get to know him here before she could come home; moreover, that the first step in healing would be to learn to live in the moment instead of day dreams and fantasies, which are not truth. At approximately the same time Amy was given that answer, I was given a very similar message (through the controversial Harry Potter books, of all things): fantasy is only of God insofar as it is used to explain and clarify reality so that you can better understand and act in the real epic battles of everyday life. I most often use fantasy to run from those every day battles. I shouldn't. Like Ron in the stout-hearted and hospitable Weasley family, I was put in my family, home, resources, and generation for a reason and it is my responsibility to be my self (not my fearless older brother or the innumerable women I meet who are more graceful and beautiful than I am) and recognize and fight the semi-hidden and unacknowledged demons of my time with the people, skills, and wealth God gave me. I need to trust not only that God is not an imbecile director for putting me here in this mess of a play, but also that God is my Father who wants to Father me and give me good gifts, like fireworks synchronized to kick-ass music with loving friends. No more Ms. Houdini. My name is Faye.

Flirtation Geru

2007-07-03T16:12:00.000-07:00

This one's for you, Jen W. Most of you have heard how my romance-baning became instant urban legend the day a nice guy tried to offer me some yellow wildflowers and the first thing that came out of my mouth was, "Are they going to shoot poisonous barbs at me?" My feminine wiles, if I have any, manifest themselves more often by accident than by design and tend to be incredibly counter-productive for me. They have never yet produced reciprocal liking in any of the few guys I have developed a romantic interest in and they apparently work cruel wonders on some truly decent guys I am really not compatible with or interested in. Sindy once told me that this phenomenon was not actually a curse, but a protection from God so I wouldn't get entangled in a relationship prematurely. For the most part, I'm content with that. I have been blessed with many meaningful, deep friendships with my family and female friends. I can remain focused on my studies and I am free to make my own academic and career choices to a degree that my "claimed" friends cannot. It also helps that the unknowing targets of my affection typically move away or start dating someone else within weeks of my meeting them. Quite fortunately, I have maintained an awkward relational distance from pretty much everyone in the Young Adult group at my church so there's no fear of any of them reading the following. Quite unfortunately, I have maintained an awkward relational distance from pretty much everyone in the Young Adult group at church, including he who shall not be named because I actually developed a crush on him, something that happens VERY sporadically with me. Or to me, as the case may be. This un-named person first captured my notice because he tied my mom's shoe for her. I also learned that he loves to travel, works in construction, prefers organic foods, and is Nolan-like in his spontaneous enthusiasm for random opportunities like learning German from the senior's German bible study group or reorganizing the defunct church library. I'm a sucker for out-doorsy extroverted guys who are sweet to older women because they can be and love the written word. Three weeks later, he felt called by God to move back home to another province to be with his dad, who was really ill. Protection of family, spiritual maturity, and obedience to God's will are also really attractive to me. But half a year went by with no indication he would ever be back and I took it as a sign that God was telling me to get a better grip on reality: I'm not rally even an acquaintance to him, I still haven't finished my BA, and I may well be moving to another province in another year to begin work on my Master's and PhD. Then, last week at church there was this hairy, blonde, tanned, friendly guy happily mingling with the Young Adults group like a long-lost friend. He expressed stunned pleasure at the news that two of his friends had gotten married since he'd last saw them. I haven't been a part of the GIC young adults group very long and I'm certainly no consistent participant now that I have joined, so I assumed he was one of the elite who had been a part of the church forever and had moved away for college or something. Feeling characteristically awkward around the whole group and too sleep-deprived to bother pushing myself out of my introverted silence, I retreated with Sam to find mom so we could go home. Mom, however, was detained, so I told myself to suck it up and go mingle with people in the lobby. I dropped off a belated birthday present with Karla, then went to wish Rena a happy birthday with a mental note to make her a gift as well. While chatting lightly with Rena, Jen and Josh, the happy new couple, also came over to join the conversation and that is when I found out that the hairy guy was he who shall remain un-named. Darn, he looks lovely, I decided (non-verbally, don't cry) upon a brief glance where he stood talking to a group of people. But I have issues inviting myself into group conversations even when I'm good friends with those involved and that is definitely not the case with anyone at that church so I maintained my distance. When I glanced again he was gone and I felt simultaneously relieved and disappointed. Soon after, mom reappeared and we headed together for the exit. Dang nam it, he's standing on the landing in front of the door, I realized all too soon. It's ok, Faye. Just say, "Hey ____, welcome back." You can do casual and non-stalkerish. Nooooo I can't. It's partly the un-named's fault. He destroyed the rote response protocol by first turning away from his conversation with an old man to give my mom a hug and then picked up the keys she dropped on the floor with a cheerful, "Here, let me get those for you". Then he quickly turns to me, exuberantly lifts his right arm over his head for an exaggerated low-five (which I did manage to reciprocate) and beams, "Hey, Buddy!" And at that moment, my brilliant, witty mind, which is usually my secret pride and joy, vacated my body and its imbecile replacement spluttered out, "I'm a girl!" Gee thanks, Tips. Like I'm four years old again and it's really important to assert that fact of biology to others because the baby pink shirt with rhinestones and the apple-sized growths on my chest somehow might not make that point self-evident. "You don't like 'buddy'?" he asks, surprised. Now deeply empathising with River's character in the movie Serenity as she weeps, "Please God, make me a stone," my befuddled mind's replacement searches for some Clueless era attitude and responds, "Um, no-o." Unfazed and irascible, the un-named pushes, "How about 'Poncho', then?" Poncho? Poncho?! As in the name of that horrible little self-absorbed but emasculated terrier in the Pooch Cafe comic strip that I always hope will be eaten alive by angry hornets? I will beat your friendly face in with my shoe if you ever call me that! "Ok," I hear myself agreeing congenially, "I can live with Poncho." Suddenly his eye-brows knit together and the un-named is looking intently at my face: "Do you wear contacts? You have really blue eyes." Completely thrown off my casual groove now, I mumble, "No contacts," and immediately want to beat my head against a wall because I always wear contacts, they're just not coloured. "I don't remember them being blue," he frowns, then he suddenly turns and dashes up the staircase calling over his shoulder, "Sorry, I gotta go catch the Jankes before they leave!" I stand on the landing a minute more, dazed and mute before I follow my mom out the door. Outside, my mom bursts into laughter at me and Sam frowns at her, confused as to what's so funny. I sigh. Why? Why, God, why? Why must I turn into Rainman around guys I really like? Why can I not either shut up or speak intelligently? God laughed. Then he made me look up 2 Corinthians 12:1-10.