Searching for Grace

...

2011-05-25T20:28:00.000-07:00

Tonight my heart is heavy & sore. Like a giant fresh bruise really. All the words running through it are un words. in words. dis words.

Inadequate.

Insecure.

Incapable.

Insignificant.

Ill-equipped.

Discouraged.

Disconnected.

Disillusioned.

Disjointed.

Unappreciated.

Uncomfortable.

Unable. to. breathe.

Unwilling.

Unimaginable.

Unloved.

Unworthy.

Tonight I really am searching for Grace. Looking for ful words. I'm just too tired to look in the right place right now.

I don't want to write such self-absorbed trash, but I needed to say it to someone tonight.

(inappropriate)

wading through it

2011-03-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

Oy, I feel like I could write a novel today. Certainly an essay of some length. I started writing what I thought would be a quick blog yesterday and it has turned into a ten headed monster which I now need to either edit to death, or split into at least 3 different blogs.

What I can say is that it seems to be really core issues of Christianity that I am delving into right now. Pride, love, trust, peace, the sovereignty of God and discipleship.

More to follow. Please keep tuning in.

Tiny addendum

2011-03-09T15:40:00.000-08:00

I just have to share this with as many people as care. Oh, and you need to have read the post below this for this one to make any sense, so stop, don't read this. Read the other one and then read this!!!

Two nights ago I was woken up in the middle of the night with a huge bloody absessed tooth!!! Grrrrrr!

However, each morning I have continued to wake up in the most beautiful way possible. This morning was such a gift. I had to go to a 7:20am dentist appointment and for those of you who know me, I AM NOT A MORNING PERSON!!!! Let's be clear, even when I am having a lovely wake up time like I am, it's still not like I want to go and do anything, let alone go downtown before anything is open and get an x-ray in my painful mouth. I was trying not to let myself get freaked out as it is my normal emotional response to having to get up earlier than I normally do. I end up psyching myself out and not sleeping and then it's stress city in the am.

So, last night, I had a beautiful mother/daughter night with Jaime, and then as she is leaving, the pain in my mouth hits a massive crescendo. I can't even see out of my left eye.

She gives me these fabulous prescription advils, so I take one. I go to sleep. I sleep soundly and deeply this awesome unbroken sleep and wake up at 5:30am totally refreshed and happy aaaaand get to have this wonderful morning not being even rushed to go to the dentist and, well, I am just digging on my God.

That is all.
Amen.

This present malady

2011-03-07T12:10:00.000-08:00

Since I first went back to church regularly as an adult, I tend to walk in spiritual lock-step with the liturgical seasons of the church calendar.

Each year parallels something different to one extent or another, but I will, without being consciously aware at the time, be living an inner time of death, for example, during an Easter season one year, a time of resurrection at Easter in another year, a time of new birth in an area of my life during Advent, etc. etc.

Sometimes it's more overarching in theme. Take the last four years save this last year. Those years were, in the Christian vernacular, one very long "dark night of the soul" to use, more specifically John of the Cross' words and insight. Sure, within that dark night (a contemplative christian phrase used to describe a person's inner journey parallelling Christ's time in the tomb between Good Friday and Easter morning) there were small glimpses of birth, death, resurrection, ascension, pentecost et cetera, but they weren't so much transformative as they were small beacons of hope. Beacons in that they were at least familiar landmarks within a year to keep me from falling eternally and endlessly.

I may yearn, at times, for a completely new kind of worship at church on Sundays, but I am now, and always will be, grateful for the framework of Christ's life mirrored in the liturgical year to keep me rooted and grounded in His life rather than my own.

Twelve months ago, or so, I felt God calling me out of this "night", into the morning light. That light felt a little overwhelming after such a long time in the tomb, so I entered it very slowly and gingerly, but surely and steadily. I heard God tell me, and felt certain in the knowledge, that the grieving was over. My time spent in that season had ended, and if I were now to stay there, it was by choice or habit, not because God was leading me there.

It's been a good 12 months, and I could see through certain challenges and obstacles thrown at me, that I was in a different place and that God was equipping me with new tools and a new perspective. However, the last 40 days or so I had been struggling with something. Something unnamed, something causing me a general anxiety and more spefically felt in the mornings. Lethargy, numbness and frustration were the main characteristics playing out in my emotions. A week ago I started a devotional study. I'm using a book called "Devotional Classics". I highly recommend it. It's got 52 excerpts from classic christian authors (everyone from Dallas Willard to St. Augustine) and scripture and excersices to go with it. I felt upon doing this that I had done something small to stem this tide of spiritual apathy pulling me down. Instead, each morning in the week following, I felt more and more burdened and more than once had to reprimand myself for what I felt was a complete failure to thrive under the promise of new life that I'd felt given 12 months earlier. What was going on??

This morning arrived, and with it the heavy hand of oppression and defeat. That was it. That was the feeling. I felt truly defeated in my heart. Why wasn't this morning bringing new life with it? Why this nameless weariness and almost-dread? I felt compelled to face it and to do something to wrench myself out of it and not let it go on for the rest of the day, or for one more morning. I got out of bed and headed to my bookcase and grabbed "Spiritual Warfare - How to live in Victory and retake the Land" by Dean Sherman. I wasn't sure I needed to read this particular book again, but I felt sure that the author would jolt me out of my present mood with his head on grasp of things and his refusal to hide from anything dark.

I was a few pages in when I finally woke up. I love this author so much because of the way that he continually takes it back to scripture. I was sitting there with his book and the bible spread out on my lap when I had to stop and, without any fuss or bother, tell satan to "get thee behind me" and stop telling me lies about the victory I already live in. I took time to praise God before and after and sat still in the knowledge of who God is and who I am because of what He's done. I knew, then and there, that this present malady was past and over and that I get to live and walk in this victory.

I hesitated in going to church then because I was so pleased with my personal conversation with God and the light and transformation filling me up. What, I asked myself, could church add to this day? (not the most positive thing to think about church, but I was having rather a good bible study on my own.) I went anyway, feeling that it was the most faithful thing I could do even if it was a bit of a effort, and as I was sitting there in my pew, blithely unaware of where we were in the church calendar (beyond the fact that Lent starts on Wednesday) Logan begins his sermon. I realize as soon as he starts that this Sunday, here before me, is Transfiguration Sunday and as my heart begins to burst, Logan says further that he believes, knows, that it is going to be a year of Transfiguration for this congregation! Well, in a less demure and well-behaved type of church, I would have yelled "Amen!", but instead I just said to myself "Yes, yes it will be. I agree with you and this truth entirely." For myself I have no doubt that it has begun.

I am so grateful to my God for this day. For all that He has revealed to me. For the patience and the faithfulness He has shown me. For the love, more than anything, that He has bestowed upon me.

As an aside (not really) I will say that I expected nothing when I felt called to go to the cathedral almost a year ago now. Instead I have received such an open armed, open hearted welcome. It was truly humbling and filled me with a quiet joy at the time. It still does.

Today at communion, my hand was held while the bread was placed and it was a human hand, but it was my saviour's touch. Words were shared with me, words of compassion and understanding, words of concern, and they were a woman's words, but it was my saviour's love.

It is enough, and I am transfigured.

As a postscript, I wrote all of this yesterday, right after church. This morning I woke up with the light coming in my window. I woke up with ease and with gentleness. I felt held and the air around me was sweet and soft. My God is an awesome God.

Thank you,

Amen.

My own personal Thanksgiving

2010-10-22T20:16:00.000-07:00

This Thanksgiving (two weeks ago now, sheesh!) I went back to Nanaimo for the second year in a row. I have no doubt that when I left there ( almost three years ago)I was really, really ready to leave there, but there is a part of me that will always find itself in the neighbourhood where I raised my daughter and where I drew the nearest to God and to myself.
Tops on my list of things to be grateful for then is simply the chance to go back, pretty much whenever I want, thanks to some very dear friends who are still there and make me feel like it's my own home that I'm coming back to.
This year my friends were actually in Nepal doing this amazing trek that had been part of a birthday present the year before when I was in the same place. However, that left their 18 year old daughter, who is like a second daughter to me, by herself for Thanksgiving and she said that she would rather have me there with her than hang out with her friends for that weekend. I felt the same way so, perfect.
The first night we just visited and talked, found our way with each other. I truly like this girl a lot. She is very important to me and a second thing I will give thanks for is being able to continue to be this close to this family.
The second day was indescribably beautiful. I have put pictures with this post simply because a picture is often, truly, worth a thousand words.
It's like, the way that the water looked when I walked down to the beach. It was crystal clear. You could see every pebble, every ripple, every shadow and even though it was fall, I wanted to put my toes in it because it was so perfect. There was every cliche fabulous thing happening at the beach that day it made me laugh out loud. There were feathers floating. There was a jelly fish on the shore, there were seagulls flying over head, there were sailboats and it was quiet and I heard people being gentle and kind to one another.It wasn't just beautiful to look at it was beautiful inside of me. I just felt so present and available. Full of inner hospitality. That's what I strive for everyday and it's always so satisfying to have a day like that. It keeps me hopeful for days and days afterwards. It's what I want to bring into the relationships that I have with the people around me. It's like, when I am around my family, especially my daughter and granddaughter, I am content or I get excited and I feel happy without trying because things make sense. But, when I am by myself I have towork not to feel jangled and disjointed in my head because I feel like something is missing. None of this is okay from a Christian standpoint because I know that there was a time in my past that being alone was so easy for me. It was just time to be connected to God and it was like breathing. This is all stuff I am finding my way back to and this time in Departure Bay was like finding myself fitting back into my own skin again without any effort. It was, quite simply, exactly the way that I want to feel in my own head and heart all the time. I would love to say more to try and convey that but it's just the truth. It was a time for me to remember what it felt like to be alone and not need or want for any other feeling to be inside of me or anything else to make the moment what it was.

What do you want me to be?

2010-09-28T20:17:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a long walk to the ocean.
I tried to re-learn a few things.
I do not sit and be the way I once did. I am not silent inside the way I once was. I do not sit by the water's edge and let the sound of the waves crash into me as I should. As often as I should.
I do not watch every sunset and stop when the evening stops, and I should.
I don't participate in a conversation with my God the way that I should. Unceasingly, as I should.
I am not as kind as I should be.
I am not as gentle as I should be. I am not as good as I should be.

I will continue to let this journey, this season have it's full play. I will not be defeated by the lack of progress I have made. The lack that I perceive with my shortsighted human eyes. I will do everything that God asks of me in letting Him have His way with me. I will not stop short of the finish line and not run the good race. I will do all of that in Him because without Him I will fail at all of my best intentions. I know that no matter what I will not let go of God and because of that He will not let go of me. So even though I cannot see it now, He is not finished with me and I have not even begun to see the fruit of His spirit in me. That's the daily gift. That's the gift tonight.

Amen.

On a Sunday Morning

2010-09-19T12:41:00.001-07:00

I just got back from a Sunday Morning communion service that brought with it an enormity of emotion.
It starts for me with the knowledge that I am in the place I am supposed to be. Something I never thought I would feel at the cathedral but, something I am extremely grateful for.

"It was the 70th Anniversary of the "Battle of Britain", which took place in the skies over Britain in the summer of 1940 and is considered by many to have been the most significant battle of the Second World War. The defense of the skies over Britain rested on the shoulders of a gallant group of fighter pilots from Britain and the Commonwealth who succeeded in their task of thwarting the Luftwaffe, and averting a Nazi invasion which would, in all probability, have taken place, thereby changing the history of our world."

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few ~ Winston Churchill

It is at this time that we also stop in church and give prayer and thanks for the pilots in harm's way on the many missions undertaken by the Canadian Forces around the world, and particularly in Afghanistan.

The Recessional Hymn today was one based on an old melody (for those in peril on the sea) but was altered many many years ago for those who had flown. The fourth verse snuck up on me.

We thank You, Father, for the days
Of golden dawns and sunsets' rays
Accept our praise, O Lord we pray
And guide us on Your chosen way.
Be with us, Father, as we rise
To brave the challenge of the skies.

My own father, who is never truly far from my thoughts, has been in them a great deal lately. A little more than usual I would say. I have heard his voice giving me his perspective on things that I am dealing with, and hearing his corny old expressions whenever they are suitable to the conversation. Last night my sisters and I were working with a challenge of sorts and again, we referenced, "how would he have said this, if he were still alive?"

So, this morning, with the cathedral full of aviators in their crisp uniforms, fly boys for us to put a human face to it all, I could not help but think of Dad and his love of flying and while the words of the last verse were being sung I choked back huge sobs (I was trying to make a baby laugh so....) as waves of memories flooded my conscious mind. I was suddenly filled with gratitude and awe at the wonder of being able to have flown with my Dad so many times. It's easy to forget about, but it was the very best thing I ever experienced with him and I've always wished I could do it one more time. I left the church and came out into the warm sunshine and knew it would have been a great day to have gotten in a plane with him.

I turned the corner on to our street and the whole of the armed forces that had been in our church today were over at the Cathedral's graveyard to place their memorial over there. The lone trumpeter played the most beautiful and lingering Reveille I had ever heard. Thank you for that.

Thank you, Dad, for taking me on that adventure with you and sharing one of your great joys with me, I am eternally grateful.

Thank you, Father in Heaven, for taking me on an even greater adventure with you, and for sharing joy when you gave us Jesus. I am eternally grateful.

My heart is full and I wish I knew how to share it better. I hope and pray the people around me will help me as I learn how to love more fully, more openly, with more bravery.

Be with us, Father, as we rise
To brave the challenge of the skies.

still here. still breathing

2010-08-27T21:55:00.000-07:00

I am a little amazed at how far I've come in so short a time, while still feeling like I have so far to go.
Every friday for the last year or more (like four, maybe) my dinner has been a chocolate bar and a bowl of popcorn. Some pop, kool-aid, more crap, etc. TV on all night.
This friday (well in fact the last three fridays) I made it through all the extra goodies that sit in front of me all day and was still able to resist even given that it was "friday" and the beginning of my holidays to boot.

Okay, I wrote the bit at the top there about two weeks ago and I'm happy to say that it is Friday again and I still did it! I still refrained from all the goodies and sugar in front of me, even on a day when I wasn't feeling well and wanted to give in because I was just feeling icky. Instead I had my apple, and my yogurt and raspberries and my almonds and I will go home and have a chicken breast and some yummy brown rice with garlic & cilantro and I might treat myself to one square of semi-sweet dark chocolate. Then I will go for a walk and do my evening yoga.

I even went on vacation for a week and didn't really do too badly. I had chips one evening but I restricted myself to a handful. I had one glass of wine. I did my yoga three mornings out of five and walked any chance I got. I did not put on any additional pounds.

My biggest success of the last five weeks was on the emotional health front. I had a moment when I became overwhelmed by sadness and felt the weight of the last four years at my doorstep. For an hour I entertained this guest and let the conversation between us two old friends develop. I was having a parallel conversation with myself whilst this sadness & futility roamed around the living room with me. I pondered all the angles, all the different ways I could respond to it. I felt the pull of the familiar reaction; hide in the cave, be afraid, numb out, let the elephant of anxiety sit on my chest like I expect it to.

Then I had a new thought. It was hard to hear it amidst the noise of the past, but I listened really, really hard and then... I got up and put on my new evening yoga tape and did it instead.

I learned that it wasn't the "yoga" itself that took me to a different place than the norm, it was getting out of my head and into my body for a reality check. My head & heart were being pulled into an old place, a place that doesn't even exist anymore because it's been healed, but yet the deep groove that was worn into the pattern of my habits said it was still there. Doing this quiet, gentle, but persistently physical yoga for half an hour yanked the needle of my record player out of this worn track and into a new place. I still felt subdued for a couple of days but I rejoiced (quietly) at my soul's ability to hear a new song.

Thank you Jesus, lover of my soul for never letting go.

Sing to Him a new song;
play skillfully, and shout for joy.

For the word of the Lord is right and true;
He is faithful in all He does.
Psalm 33: 3-4

Update aka keeping myself accountable.

2010-08-16T08:46:00.000-07:00

As I wrote last time kids, I had woken with a new resolve. I am starting a new week with the undeniable sensation that I did not fail at it. For the remainder of last week, I kept putting one foot in front of the other, nothing major, just nothing to sabatoge myself or go backwards.
This week I was able to maintain that momentum and even increase it.
I'm trying to handle it in chunks. Spiritual, physical, emotional, intellectual, financial.
For spiritual I went back to a book that gave me insight and some great practices to anchor myself with. It was a little overwhelming to see exactly what and how much I had forgotten over the last few years that I once knew and felt I knew with every part of me. That would be the sin of pride right there.
So instead of getting overwhelmed by relearning stuff or trying to go back to some point in time where I had my shit together, I decided to look at it as an opportunity to just learn; period. To take it all in as if it were the first time. To not hamper myself by attaching a past perspective on what I'm taking in and making my own. Who cares where I was two years ago. I know God doesn't. He cares what I am doing right now.
The biggest change I think is one of the simplest. Instead of praying for the things I need, I'm just asking God what I can do for Him. Who can I be for Him. I went back to church after taking a year off (that's a whole other story) and the experience has been very satifsying. I was able to let go of some real baggage around the church and the leaders therein and I have found a real peace with the process.
Emotionally, I'm just not owning stuff that isn't mine. I'll stay with something, anger, or disappointment for as long as it takes to acknowledge it and then move on. Be thankful. Made some changes in how I think of my family. I can't fix stuff that isn't mine, so I just have to do what's given to me and leave the rest for God. I may miss certain people but we all have our own perspective. In the past I have simply apologized for everything, hahaha even if it wasn't my fault. I just thought since I was the youngest, they all expected an apology to come from me so I delivered it. Then I got to the point where instead of apologizing I started blaming everyone else (in my head mostly). Now, I will just love but not force myself on anyone. That will have to do and emotionally it's the healthiest thing I can do because, once again, I cannot fix it.
Physically, I am really pushing for a huge change, so it's changing the most obviously even if it is baby steps.
This week I cut out half a teaspoon of sugar in my tea. Added a small bowl of cereal to my breakfast. Changed from eating a doughnut or muffin midmorning to an apple. Changed my lunch from anything I felt like over at the food court to a small bowl of yummy greek yoghurt and berries. Changed my midafternoon snack from another doughnut or muffin or chocolate bar to almonds. Changed my dinner from pasta with cream sauce to a green salad with a breast of chicken (changing the options I add in whenever boredom arises). Changed my evening snack from a chocolate bar and chips and cookies and whatever else I could stuff in myself to popcorn and a light biscuit or a chunk of cheese or a slice of turkey. That one I am still playing around with. I added about three or four glasses of water a day as well.
Then I added over a half an hour of walking per night. Then I added 20 minutes of yoga in the morning. Now I've added a half an hour of any one of 12 video workouts I have at lunch or early evening. I cut out carbonated beverages and if I want a treat I will have half an ounce of good quality semi-sweet dark chocolate.
I feel good. I hate my workouts still but I am starting to have a more positive commentary in my head while I am doing it. Plus I am just proud of myself for getting them in there, loving them will come later. I have stopped looking in the mirror and calling myself fat. I have stopped saying that in my head. I am not saying I'm not still discouraged. I am. But, I simply believe it will get better because I HAVE STARTED DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT INSTEAD OF JUST THINKING ABOUT IT!!!!
Intellectually and mentally. These are harder to get your hands on in terms of progress, but a couple of things. I love reading and I had stopped doing it. So, I have been reading a ton and loving it. I am almost ready to cancel my cable. That comes next on my list under the category of being financially fit which is also starting to show improvements. I had a little plan and I've kept to it and I'm seeing things moving. "nuff said.
Also, mentally refreshing is just getting out there and doing more stuff. Went to family camp. Taught a little girl how to make friendship bracelets. Made time to go for a few walks with my Mom. Watched an old movie with my neice. This week I will go to a movie and get more walks in (these are not the active fat burning walks, but just the strolling, I love my city and am getting out of my head walks). It's just about putting one foot in front of the other.
There are projects that I have been putting off for a couple of years and I am not ready to committ to those things yet because I don't want to set myself up for failure and I think that a big part of getting healthy in all these ways is the amount of stress we simply place on ourselves to get it all done instead of setting reasonable parameters. Yer, that's definitely the place I will have to work on in the coming weeks is simply not getting overwhelmed by what I see as the finish line. It's about the race this time, not where I place. I will see myself not as someone that isn't done yet, but as someone who is enjoying and grateful for the opportunity to grow and learn. The destination is nowhere near as important.

From limbo to Samba!!!!

2010-08-11T10:10:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up with a slightly new resolve. A more concrete resolve.

I went to bed last night feeling that I wanted to dance for at least an hour before I went to sleep. Now I didn't, only because that would have woken me right up and I needed to sleep. I have woken up feeling very depressed and sad (see last post lol) the last few days, perhaps weeks and I was not enjoying that because:

I have spent the last couple of years being sad and depressed and I had finally found, around january or february of this year, that it had lifted and every day felt a little better. This newish feeling of being sad felt like a step backwards and I am now resolving not to just lie still and let it wash over me. I looked back and remembered that the lifting of said sadness was also in the form of resolve from me and that it didn't go away on it's own the first time so why would I expect it to the second time. I made an effort the first time. It was little baby steps, but I am the one that took control each morning when I woke up and just decided to think about lovely things upon waking. I would think words if I couldn't formulate whole sentences. Things like, "love, hope, joy, trust, faith, beauty, energy, green, blue". I would literally just try and put as many nice and lovely things in my brain as I could and dwell on each word as I brought it into my mind. As I did this each morning for about a week, I could feel God aiding me in my quest to reach calm and joy. All He had been waiting for was for me to open the door to things of beauty and possibililty (that's another word I repeated a lot!) and suddenly there were things of beauty and possibility to see.

Then, slowly at first but increasingly up to last night, I let nothing but stress and anger and frustration and discouragement linger in my thoughts and my heart.

This time God didn't wait for me to open the door. This time He just put the possibility of dancing and singing into my heart and by this morning I woke up ready and willing to put the work in again.

Today, I am ready to wake up thinking lovely things again. Today I have a song (or three!) in my head. Today I am ready to see that He has a purpose and it is a good one. Today and tomorrow at least, I will actively take responsibility for the silence and restraint of my own thoughts and hand them to God not as you would throw a boomerang out into the ether, but for Him to take and hold onto because I have no use for them. Not when I could be dancing.

pooooo

2010-08-09T13:54:00.000-07:00

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Janet Leah Redux

2009-07-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking, for a while now, that I am not a very good person. Recent events have solidified my opinion that I am most likely right about that. I mean, I know I'm going to heaven and all because it's not about being good or doing good, it's about being forgiven and I am that, but I don't think I'm a very good person.

I used to be a horrible person (although that has different layers depending on who you talk to throughout the years) and I had thought for awhile that I had become a good person, that I had discarded most of the bad and had emerged so much better. That I had transformed and shed those layers of crap and come out all shiny and clean.

Now I don't believe that. I think that I probably suck in more ways than I really know. That I haven't done anything like a good job at staying transformed, at staying kind, gentle, loving etc.

I have a suspicion that I am a mean, petty, selfish, narrow minded shrew that makes peope feel badly about themselves and creates friction at every level. Even if it's subliminal and not meant, I still manage to do it. Make people feel bad that is.

During the period of time that I may have done a decent job of being a kind, good and loving person I was given a vision by this lovely wise-woman. We were praying together about something important (I can't remember what) and she said, "I see you and your life as a garden. A place of refreshment where people could come to feel safe and fed." I am pretty sure I am not getting close to this vision at all.

I feel like I need a personality transplant. I don't even know where to start with the one that I have. I hate that I am the age that I am and I am still getting it so wrong. I don't even know how many things are wrong with me probably because people are too afraid to even tell me what a sham I really am. Was I born this way? I don't remember being horrible as a child. I think it came much later so it's still possible that I can kill this self and get back to who God made me to be?

I don't mean to say I get everything wrong. I am sometimes in the right place with the right words for the right person. But I think I might be getting way more of it wrong than right.

I feel like i want to bury myself in the ground and emerge with my skin shed. I want to open my eyes and find that I am a garden.

Or something to that effect.

Well... I'm pissed off Rick

2009-07-06T14:40:00.000-07:00

This is just from my myspace two years ago and I am just posting it here because I am probably going to shut down my myspace and there are one or two posts I didn't want to lose. I copied this one here because I just remember this night so vividly and I love having strong memories, good, bad or ugly I just like to know they happened.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Current mood: cranky
So last night at about 2:15am, some drunken oblivious troglodyte calls me, says nothing (TOOODRUNK), sounds of leaving bar in background, some guy screams in background, then hangs up, then proceeds to drunkenly hit redial 5TIMES whilst walking about with cell phone in coat or pants pocket, and doesn't realize redial has been hit for anywhere from 30 seconds to five minutes each of the 5TIMES!!!!!! After being woken in this fashion several times I get in my car and head to the beach simply to be somewhere else other than my drunken cell phone misusers next call vicinity. There is no way for me to call this troll and let them know that this is something that is pissing me off no end as their number is a handy "private name, private number" number and will not accept the call back feature that is other wise so handy. I later learn ways to circumvent this but it is too late at this time to use them. Also, this is a person who has called before, as I can see from my call display that they have called 2 previous times, perhaps not drunkenly and who knows, maybe they even used their words. This is probably some stalker boy who pines for my daughter and doesn't yet have HER new number on their speed dial so as to dial it from the comfort of their pants as they are walking around in a drunken fog on St. Patty's day no doubt having swilled far more green beer than is good for them!!!! Just to put a cherry on the rancid sundae that was my early morning stupidity bonanza I see tennis on and YaY!!! my fav, Andy Roddick is playing. Oh, yippee I think - a good way to fall asleep - with victory. But noooooo, he stinks up the arena and gets a serious whoopin', thanks for nothing Andy.On a good note it is always handy to have an ex-boyfriend who is awake at 4 in the morning who will talk to you and help you be back in a good mood, which happens fairly quickly when you realize that he has smoked a joint for the first time in years and the next hour of a conversation is highly reminiscent of ones in hotboxed cars circa 1979/80. Hahahhahaha. Umm, drugs are bad mmmkay.

Searching for Grace indeed.

2009-06-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

It has been months and months of having a sucky prayer life. I just felt completely disconnected. Not freaked out, cause I know it's there and I know Who I know, but I was getting a little ansty for a fruitful prayer life.
Cue Julie Andrews as Maria Von Trapp "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start."
I was staying at my super awesome friend Joanna's house and looking at her very groovy new bookshelves, when I happened to notice a book that I had been thinking about not more than a week or so earlier. I had given it to her early on in our friendship, when we were both in love with prayer, especially prayer with each other and I had somewhere along the line, lost my copy.
It is a book that would be considered by any modern day young Christian to be corny and out of fashion. It was one of the first books I read when I had really decided to take my faith out of my back pocket and give it an honest go and so it still occupies a special place in my mind re: the growth I had early on.
It's called "Adventures in Prayer" and is written by a woman named "Catherine Marshall". Google her and you will find that she authored over 20 books which have sold over 16 million copies. Most of her work came in the fifties and sixties after her husband Peter Marshall, died. He was an extremely big time minister in the states who went on to the be Chaplain of the US Senate. So, she is corny according to this generation, but she is wise and has lived through very difficult circumstances that make her writing more profound than it looks because she speaks with the truth of the word and with a humility that Christians only get when they have been wounded and healed. I respect her for this.
Last night I picked it up on the ferry after bumbling my way around my prayers for the millionth time lately and the first two chapters were exactly what I needed to read and take in. The first one, "The prayer of asking" is particularly what I want to share.
When I left Jaime's house and the baby, there was anxiety and moodiness and discomfort. I felt guilty about leaving and wanted to do more. I had to sit for some time with the realization that my prayers could do so much more if I was asking the right way.
I spent a few minutes repenting for my lukewarm double minded, too religious prayers and got down to the business of "asking". She used very particular scriptures to lead me to my core on this and why I hadn't been asking enough or with enough detail, so when I prayed I asked for these things:
Strength and peace for my daughter.
A good night for Mariella.
A good poop very soon for the baby.

Upon getting home, I discovered that Jaime was sounding much stronger, had had a shower and was not half as frazzled as I'd left her and that Mariella had a good poop.
This morning was started off by finding out that they'd had a much better night.

Just simple requests. Asked as if expecting the answer. Jesus cares if babies poop. So deal with that.

2009-05-06T22:08:00.000-07:00

Words are very important to me. To me, the phrase "actions speak louder than words" doesn't really ring true. Words speak loud like words to me. My life is not a silent movie, it's a talkie.
I have learned lately, in a very deep way, that I cannot trust someone who does not express themselves in words.
Words were negated for me when I was growing up. They were not allowed. I think that is why I was such a book worm. I couldn't get enough of them because there just weren't enough of them in real life and so instead they just went around and around in my head because there was no release for them.
Now I'm not saying there isn't validity to actions being a true reflection of what is going on inside a person, and I'm not ignoring the fact that a person can say a load of horse shit while trying to "appear" to be honest, but for me, the fact is words are the only thing that will truly smooth the way, make me relax, help me trust and believe in someone. Until that word comes out that I am waiting to hear, I am only waiting for the other shoe to drop.
John 1
The Word Became Flesh
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.

2009-04-26T22:07:00.000-07:00

This has been a pretty good weekend for me. I cleaned some, relaxed some, watched movies galore. "Vicky Christina Barcelona", "Three Faces of Eve" (no wonder Joanne Woodward won an Oscar) "King Kong'( No the giant insects were not cool), "The Thomas Crown Affair", "Inherit the Wind".
There were others, I just can't remember right now. Today I went for a walk to the olde english sweet shoppe to find a chocolate bar that I felt I had deserved with my clean lifestyle this weekend. Good salads, just a small treat friday night. But I thought that since it would take quite a walk to get this other chocolate bar, my favourite, it would be more points for me to take the walk than I would lose by eating the bar. Excellent justification no?
So, I got there and the store wasn't open. That's fine, off to the next store carrying good European chocolate. That was a longer walk so by the time I was done, I went all the way around the harbour and it was a lovely walk. There must have been a cruise ship in because there was a boatload of French people all around me and it gave me a lift to listen to my favourite language everywhere I went. I saw a huge otter, he was so fat that I have to wonder if he was a she, ready to pop. Come to think of it, it was heading for shelter under this old building so it probably has a nest there.
I am super bored by this post now. I started it for some reason that I have long forgotten. So I'm going to stop.

So simple, so small.

2009-04-20T21:04:00.000-07:00

For a billion years now I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Contrary to everything I know to be true about my God, I have been living in fear.

"Be not afraid." It is just as simple as that. Why is this so hard for a human being to get. To grasp. To hold.

"Be not afraid." It's a command and I say I am faithful yet I fail to yield to this command. It's one I am supposed to respond to out of faith and hope and trust and most of all Love. Because He loved me first.

I have sacrificed my all for my God and held back my trust. It makes me feel so stupid. It is so ridiculous. I know that I had peace before. I know that I can trust God with my life, but I am stubbornly holding on to a deep mistrust of what He does with the lives of others I lay before Him.

Lord God, I ask your forgiveness of this horrible lack of abiding peace in You. It will be my life's work to trust in You and "Be not afraid."

I will say it to myself until I actually believe it.

Momentum

2009-03-24T11:38:00.000-07:00

I am ready for Spring. Ready to see God's hand in action amongst the flora and fauna. This next week and then the next month after that will see the biggest changes in my life since I had a baby almost 23 years ago. I am digging into God, trying to find the balance. I will reclaim some of the things I once knew and stop clinging to the things that don't work anymore. I will be present and available to each moment that I am in, regardless of whether it is sunshine or rain. I live in limbo right now and I know that it's wrong. There is so much to have joy about right now. A lot to have understandable sorrow about, but I believe it is done with it's turn in the spotlight and needs to become dormant for a time. I'm super afraid and also calm. They are both there sitting in the front row. I'm going to get rid of afraid, because I don't like him. I think as soon as I clean my house, he'll move out.

45 by 45

2009-03-22T10:56:00.000-07:00

1.Grow a really good herb garden (inside outside, doesn't matter)
2.Get back into a few select items I have in my fat box
3.lose at least 10 pounds
4.Join a gym
5.Finish a certain secret project that i have been procrastinating about
6.Buy a bottle of chianti
7.Have the house clean every day for at least a month.
8.Become a grandmother ;0
9.Fix the frame on two pictures
10.Find an apartment with a balcony
11.get my walking schedule back on track
12.start re-learning french
13.Get more fluid at my job
14.Learn a new recipe a month
15.Throw out fifty things
16.Organize my kitchen cupboards
17.Buy some new sheets
18.get a nice mattress pad
19.Go to a symphony
20.Go to a ballet
21.Join a kayak group
22.Use my spa certificate for a relaxing day at the spa
23.Do my taxes
24.get a pair of navy slacks (you think this is easy but I've been looking for 2 years)
25.get my loveseat re-upholstered or throw it out.
26.make a new friend
27.keep in better touch with the old ones
28.Learn to smile more naturally
29.Knit at least one thing
30.Get my drycleaning done
31.Dance just a little bit every day
32.Pray with ten times the passion and commitment
33.Reestablish my scripture reading
34.See Slumdog Millionaire
35.Watch the Reader
36.Find a new church
37.Give up stress much better than I did during Lent
38.Put my old Lp's on mah computer.
39.Get an ipod or something like that to make my walking more enjoyable.
40.Have a fantastic relationship with my son in law.
41.Make my Mom smile about something everyday.
42.Get out of debt
43.Open a savings account
44.Take more pictures.
45.Let go of everything that holds me down and interferes with my peace.

"After all, tomorrow is another day."

2009-03-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

I am sad and overwhelmed and quite deflated at the moment. I am also okay. And I am not.
I love people, yet they make things very hard sometimes. And they make it worthwhile. I need to go to bed as I am feeling melancholy, but because I am feeling melancholy I cannot go to bed.

Oh yeah, and I am also now, angry and unsettled. I wish it was warmer out and I could go for a walk.

I love you honey no matter what your address is!!

2009-02-28T19:46:00.002-08:00

It would be so easy to be overwhelmed right now. My life & the life of my dearest loved one has changed suddenly & irrevocably. For those who know our life, you will know that there is a lot here that could be overwhelming. I don't think I will be though. Partly because I have given up stress for Lent. Partly because the change is a good one. It is one that, in principle, God has given me much peace about. It is just the doing of it that feels hard. Just the "kachunk" of the thing moving forward and happening. Right now, I am just sitting in my living room typing a post. That in and of itself is not overwhelming. Next I may go to the store and take back a movie. Nothing overwhelming in that. And then I will watch Midsomer Murders, which will take my mind off of everything for an hour and a half and then I will go to bed and sleep. None of that is overwhelming. The fact that my daughter has just moved away so very suddenly and that she is going to have a baby and that my mother is going to be moving here and that I may be moving to a new place and that I have an insanely stressful job, and that my church is falling apart, well, yes that all seems overwhelming. But I have a God and a personal friend in Christ that doesn't just listen when I pray, but who actually, if I give it up well and truly, takes my burdens from me and carries them for as long as I let Him. Then it is up to me to carry my portion that He has given me and no more and then hand stuff back to Him again and so on and so on. This is what I wish for my daughter as a parting gift - That she will do this handing over and letting go, sooooo much better than I have. Okay, going to the store now.

It is no small thing

2009-02-23T21:42:00.000-08:00

The oscars.... a really big thing for me since I was a small child. Some people will poo poo it and say it's just a spectacle blah blah blah, but I am moved by theatre, I am moved by a story, I find humanity in all of it and I love humanity, I love my fellow man and I love the nakedness and the honesty of film. I stayed home from school a lot when I was a kid, absolutely hated school and didn't learn anything whilst there. When I was home, I watched movies. Tons and tons of movies. Also, documentaries because there were only two channels when i was little and there was just good quality programming on them, not endless reruns and crap. I had parents who had a very broad knowledge of actors & actresses and stars and they informed my views of cinema in general and the gifted people in the industry. I was a huge fan of stories in any form really, I read voraciously and there are still movies from when I was little and becoming a teenager that I know helped create my world view. Guess Who's coming to Dinner helped me to understand bigotry and prejudice and be aware of it. The thing is, in my family we didn't talk about black and white. We talked about people's characteristics and their values etc. So, it was somewhat shocking to me to find that there were huge prejudices out there. The movie "The trial of Billy Jack" was a moment I'll never forget. It opened my eyes to the vast gulf between settlers and indigenous peoples and the triumph of love over hate. My Mom walked in to find me sobbing harder than I ever had in my life to that point. It answered a cry of my heart.
Gone with the Wind, Funny Girl, What's up Doc, The Pink Panther movies. 2001 A Space Odyssey, Singing in the Rain, Apocalypse Now, Paper Moon, Amadeus, Bladerunner, The Fisher King, Tous Les Matins du Monde, Gladiator, Empire of the Sun, LA Confidential, An American in Paris, Oliver!, The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, Elizabeth, The Piano, Titanic, A beautiful mind, The insider.
I love movies. I love being in a movie theater, I miss sitting in a drive-in theatre - Aristocrats, Peter Pan, Grease, etc.
I love what Penelope Cruz said about art being a universal language and I loved that they brought out five award winning peers for each nominee, I think it was one of the classiest things I've ever seen and the moment of legacy that that afforded the nominee gave much more credence to the fact that they deserved to be in that company of actors.
I loved that Kunio Kato said "Domo origato Mr. Roboto" Seriously, that was just good fun.
I loved that I got to feel wholehearted about Heath Ledgers win for Best supporting Actor. I am all for my favourites and for the gesture, but I also want the best person to actually win, and I was blown away by his performance in that movie and I hate that it was his last one and I approve completely even as a movie snob that he won.
I love that Kate Winslet finally won an oscar and I also think that she has grown into it with grace and talent, so it was probably exactly what she should have won one for.
I kind of wish that Richard Jenkins had won for best actor, but that's just because I would have loved to see the look on his face. It's fantastic that he even got the nom, but I would have loved the moment of having a seriously hard working character actor get a lead actor award.
And I loved that Slumdog won so much simply because I have a deep deep love of India and it's people and that culture touches my heart and makes me want a better life for all of them. Yes, that was very satisfying.
I think that this was one of the best produced Oscars I have seen in years and it looked to the naked eye as though it was actually enjoyable for all gathered there instead of just a painful debacle to sit through.
Bravo all of you, bravo.

No words at all...nope

2009-02-23T08:25:00.000-08:00

I have no words lately. None that I can write anyway. Either I have comments that I should be finishing...ie there are still some outstanding questions left from posts of friends that I have not answered. Not because i didn't want to or because they weren't worth answering ( in fact I was pretty excited about taking them on )but because it took getting my brain into some sort of organized format. I have things that are either too sad or too dark to write about or things that are joyful but aren't really mine to write about. They are all forming this huge ball of unmanageable thoughts that I can't pull coherent structure out of. Tonight I have to give a speech and that is the last thing I want to do. If I can't formulate something fantastic to say here while I have time, how will I ever do it tonight. I have thought about what to say and each year when this event comes up I usually have a theme my brain has been working on, some key phrases or events that I can hang a speech around after I take the temperature of the people gathered there, but this year, my brain has no words. I went for a walk last night and tried to pray, but I'm pretty sure that God was like, "um, if you would only stop stuttering and saying the same thing over and over again, I'd love to have a conversation with you. Maybe you could get back to me when you stop thinking the same way a hamster runs around in a ball?"
There's way too much for me to be looking forward to to be stuck in this place.

That place I was before.

2009-01-31T14:08:00.000-08:00

Why is it some people push our buttons? And why is it that some people want to push your buttons?
I hate that I can't always have the best reaction to people and situations. For a great deal of my life, I had no problem (seemingly) with getting angry at people. It was not all that uncomfortable to be mad when I felt I had something to be mad about. Then I stopped that. God stopped that in me. Not in a violent way, not because He reached in a took it away but rather because I trusted Him and let Him look at it and then gave it to Him freely. I put it aside in favour of trying to see the small child in people that they used to be. I found that tended to stop the anger in it's tracks as I saw what my Father in Heaven must see when he looks at all of us - His children. My expectations of people and what they had to offer emotionally or intellectually was lowered. Not so that I thought they were all morons or anything, but just so that I didn't expect a perfect response from a broken individual. Because you can't always see the reasons for a person's behaviour just from looking at their face and hearing their voice. So this lowering helped my response become more gentle and more forgiving and more patient.
It hasn't been something I have focussed on for years now and over the past four years more precisely I have felt wounded and broken myself and have been very inward and frozen emotionally. This has lead to the inevitable backward slide of growth. Where has my patience and my gentleness gone? I am more frustrated by people than ever only, because I don't have that ever present anger inside me anymore, I am not comfortable feeling these negative things. Instead of handing them over at the foot of the cross, I am stuffing them down the black hole of my psyche instead hoping they will go away the same way a three year old thinks you can't see them when they cover their own eyes. I'm pretty sure I'm just pissed off at God and am not letting Him transform me. I don't think He's capable of getting me back to the place I was before. I know, based on my actual life experience of Him, that this is a lie. A big gigantic lie. He is the same God, yesterday, today and tomorrow. I want to love people again. I want to be patient with them and with myself and don't want to stuff anything down, I just want to let it go. Truly, not like when people say "let it go man", by which I think they mean, stop talking and thinking about it. No, more like when the bible (you know, that great book that I haven't been reading enough) says "Let go and let God." On my own I make only wrong choices. On my own I feel things through a filter of my own creation rather than the absolute truth of what is going on for all parties involved. I am capable of letting God do better in me. There, a month late, that is what my New Year's resolution is.

It's a puzzlement

2009-01-29T18:21:00.000-08:00

So there are a few things that I really don't understand. I mean, I am not stupid or anything, but I just don't quite get it.

In a nutshell, I don't get
a)what, if anything, abortion (and for that matter gay marriage) has to do with politics and
b) why on earth Canadians are so invested in what is going on politically south of the border.

I am all for being informed about the global political spectrum, but the obsession with the minutiae of the people and platforms currently under the microscope in our neighbouring country is a complete mystery to me.
I am totally 100% against abortion. I am also not going to vote for a politician based on whether he or she is for or against it. It simply doesn't play into my political tapestry one tiny bit.

There are moral issues and there are political issues. Now it would be ideal to have a moral political leader, but we still shouldn't throw these issues all in the same basket. I have a well thought out ideology as to why but that's a whole other post.

The bells are ringing.

2008-12-31T23:15:00.001-08:00

It's less than an hour to midnight. The last hour of the last day of 2008. So, what is a year. It was made of moments and experiences, hopes and failures, emotions and drudgery, all that makes up a life, broken down into time. Moments become days, days become months, months become a year, years become decades, decades become centuries and centuries become millenia. It's all a little surreal really, and if it becomes more than surreal, it can become overwhelming, being part of relentless march of time. Is it relentless, or is it a gift? It has been a strange year. I completely changed my life. New job, new city, new home, new.... new sounds... the church bells are ringing down the block.

I don't enjoy the tone of these bells but I do find the very fact of them reassuring. They make me feel connected. They have been ringing for a very long time and before these ones, others rang out the call; not just here, but in cathedrals everywhere. Actually, as I listen, I realize that tonight they are ringing a different tune. It's a little melancholy, or maybe that's just me; it's actually a more melodic tune that they normally have, strangely juxtaposed against the drunkenness going on just outside my door and the steady thump of the bass from the house party beside me. It makes me want to be outside. Not with the revelers, but just outside, where I can feel the air and taste the rain. However, when I let all of the noise in my own head stop, I find that I am content to be half inside and half out.

The Christmas tree is on, and the only other light is the candle burning at the table.

I have my glass of wine, my bible and I'm sitting beside the open window where I can actually feel the rain and taste the air, which on a night like this is probably better than the other way around. I've turned off the t.v. finally, just so I could spend the last hour of the year with God, but found I needed to say something to myself first. I'm pretty sure it's just to remind myself that there is substance and there is life. There, they've started again and will probably go on intermittently till midnight. I'm glad.

Also, stolen from Jo

2008-10-28T10:37:00.001-07:00

Things that are not working for me right now:

Saving money. Urghhh. I would love to be better at this. I think I am more clearly seeing the patterns and the emotional reasons behind it, but it's still not getting me very far.

Excercising. I would dearly love to put more of an effort into this as I want to be one hot granny. In truth I just want to be as fit with this body I was given as it is possible to be. I'm not into surgery or anything, and I don't think I am unfairly beating myself up it's just that I don't think I'll feel satisfied until I know that I have done my utmost to be at the place physically that I am capable of.

Lectio Devina. Sucking badly at bible study and regular prayer. Yup. Just not good at it at all right now. Life as I know it is simply not as full as it could be with it and the filter through which I see things is not as clear as it would be if I added this component. I am however reading "The Shack" which I would recommend to anyone who has asked the big questions of God or has been hurt by "Life" and all it can do to make you give up your belief system, or at the very least just be pissed off by the seeming randomness of it all.

What's going on out there for all of you people?

Stolen from Jo

2008-10-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

So....things that are working for me right now:

Feeling calmer at my job. It may not be the perfect job and I may not stay in it, but I am more at peace in it currently than I have been in quite awhile. I know that is more from me just letting stuff go than it is any change in the actual job but it makes it easier.

Going home for lunch most every day. I love that I am more mobile and outside more than I was living in Nanaimo. I save money by going home and I do housework (which I kind of like doing cause it seems like I'm using time that I am getting paid for and then when I come home after work it's already done) or I read and I think it recharges me, leading back a little to my first point perhaps.

Letting go of some of my fears. I still have lots and many years ago I would have said that I already let go of all of them. I'm not sure when they crept back in but they did and they have been having a party at my expense. I am sick of them and it's high time they left and went it alone. Day by Day I think I am releasing more and more of them.

Staying in touch with certain people. I have to say that the one thing that is a benefit without faking it or just trying to rationalize it is that through facebook and this blogspot and livejournal, I am more in touch with people than I normally would be. I think that this is the modern day letter writing that used to help us keep up on the tidbits of each others lives and we just don't write letters, but we blog and we change our status etc. and I don't think we need to look down on it so much, we just need to be thoughtful about it that's all.

Full up inside

2008-08-15T21:13:00.000-07:00

Okay, I wrote this in August and I was just blathering because I felt full up with stuff and always meant to go back and fix it but I will publish as is so that I can move on to another blog. Also, this stuff is still true and even though the seasons are changing, it was how I was feeling at the time.

I love my life.

I love that after a really long week I can go for a walk after work instead of sitting on the couch and that my walk takes me on the waterfront and the inner harbour and that I can sit on a bench and eat warm bread from my daughter's restaurant and watch ships go past, some on their way to our neighbours in the south like the coho which is so old and sounds it's horn like the ferry's used to do where I lived before and i love that there is so much life in the harbour and downtown. I love my God and I love that He smiled on me this day and i love that the sky is beautiful and that I can see the rays of the sunshine in the clouds like a message of hope and I love that I can tell the tourists from the cruise ship what a heron is and I love that there are bands playing and lanterns lining the walkway and weekends like this where there is so much activity and energy & beauty. I love that on my way home I go past the massive cathedral that takes up the sky and I love that I have to tilt my head back as far as it will go to look at the top of it and I love the way the sky is all dusky and purple and warm and summery and I love that I live and work downtown and still feel like I'm in an old neighbourhood and I love that my daughter works around the corner from me and that she loves her work and I love that just as the day is setting the moon comes out full and still orange and yellow from seeing the sun on it's way down and I love the homeless in this city and I love that I can walk past the park beside the church and know that they would talk to me if I tried and I don't love that I am not in relationship with these people even though God tells me that they would feel valued if I asked them how they got here and why they are living the life that they are and I hope that one day I will have the time and the courage and the extra love to help me reach out and start the conversation with them that I feel prompted to at times so that I can share what I have with those who truly need it.

Stolen survey

2008-02-21T14:49:00.000-08:00

1. Pick 15 of your favourite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Fill in the film title once it's guessed.
5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions.

1.It's K-K-K-Ken c-c-c-coming to k-k-k-kill me.
2. It's important to think. It's what separates us from lentils.
3. Those giraffes you sold me, they won't mate. They just walk around, eating, and not mating. You sold me... queer giraffes. I want my money back.
4.+ "You're a fucking *psycho*.
-"Don't rush to judgment on something like that until all the facts are in.
5.There'll be 100 million people right here in this country who will be shocked and offended and appalled and the two of you will just have to ride that out, maybe every day for the rest of your lives. You could try to ignore those people, or you could feel sorry for them and for their prejudice and their bigotry and their blind hatred and stupid fears, but where necessary you'll just have to cling tight to each other and say "screw all those people"! Anybody could make a case, a hell of a good case, against your getting married. The arguments are so obvious that nobody has to make them. But you're two wonderful people who happened to fall in love and happened to have a pigmentation problem, and I think that now, no matter what kind of a case some bastard could make against your getting married, there would be only one thing worse, and that would be if - knowing what you two are and knowing what you two have and knowing what you two feel- you didn't get married. Well, Tillie, when the hell are we gonna get some dinner?
6.I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

This one is for J'aime!
7.You tell him, and I will smack you. I will smack you like a bad, bad donkey, okay!

This is my favourite quote from a movie ever. makes me laugh my head off every time. Of course you have to see it to get how funny it actually is, otherwise it just sounds...well, bad.
8. No, I'm not okay! Do I look okay? The fucker shot me! What the fuck-ass fuck of a bum-fuck shithole town is this?
I defy any of you yankee folk to know #9
9.How do you forget about 400 pounds of defecating menace?
10. +We pumped your mother's stomach.
- Yeah, it was an accident.
+: How did she accidentally chug half a bottle of sleeping pills.
- She was cleaning them up.
+: With her mouth?
11.Give me a ping, Vasili. One ping only, please.
12. Shelves in the closet; happy thought indeed.
13.Wendell, I'd like full and docile co-operation on every topic.
14. It was like he was wearing a suit...an edgar suit.
15.I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight... razor... and surviving.

O.k. I think it was more fun for me looking up old movies and seeing all the quotes for them. It was really hard to pick the ones I liked best.

Happy Valentine's Day Dad.

2008-02-18T00:36:00.000-08:00

So, the other day was the anniversary of my Dad's death. It is a day after Valentines Day and it always makes me very reflective. This year was no different. I wasn't sad in particular. It was a day without him and this year a day without my daughter which was weird but getting more normal I suppose.

My family and close friends know that my Dad was not an easy man. He was moody and cranky and there was a gulf between us. However, I have good things to look back on and be grateful for. One of them was Valentine's Day. I'll back up a sec to say that no matter what the holiday was, Christmas, Hallowe'en, Easter, St. Patrick's Day, or Valentine's, my Dad went out of his way to be in a good mood all day and to really make the duration of the holiday special. This is a huge legacy he left because I dont have too many cliche hang ups about holidays being all awful and full of family angst etc.

It's just that in our family, Valentine's day wasn't so much about romance as it was about family. It wasn't so much about the evening out as it was about a special breakfast setting. Through out the rest of the year, the norm rather than the exception was to eat breakfast separately. We all had different schedules etc. so it wasn't very often (i'm sure that a lot of families experience this) that we shared the morning fast.

So back to the hole that is left by my Dad at Valentine's day. Every day since I was a little girl, when I woke up in the morning and saw the breakfast table laid out with all of our plates there, there would always be a heart shaped box of chocolates for me as well as for my Mom. He never let me feel left out of this holiday shaped by the world to be about romantic love. I didn't have it and there was no one else to place the box there but him. He never missed one. Except the last day. Just a box of chocolates, just one day a year. Looking back it meant the world.

Thanks Dad.

That present malady

2008-01-16T12:50:00.000-08:00

Why do we persist in accepting the mediocre in life?

Why have we forgotten about radical change, radical growth? Or do we just not think that kind of shift belongs to us. It's for other people, is that the way we have started to believe?

We do it in our families.... well, I can't tell her/him how I feel about that, it's just the way they are. We've always had that relationship and I just don't see it changing... and, my beliefs, views pain, it is just not what they want to hear about. Why doesn't it matter enough that you could reach farther into their hearts and truly know them , to take the risk of being exactly who you are with them and let them truly be who they are with you. That means mother to daughter, daughter to mother, sister to sister, aunt to nephew, neice to uncle, cousin to cousin. We were put in our families for a reason and they are a testing ground for how we relate to the world. Why do we lose all our courage here in this landscape?

We have friendships that we just let disappear and fade into time and others that we maintain but how much is real and how much is just a facade. How many of your friends really know you. And it's not how many friends would stand beside you in a crisis, it's how many of them would you ask? How many of them would you let in?

Romantic relationships end and instead of making new friends out of the person we have just ended it with, or honouring them, we live in culture that just expects things to get bad or worse or just be nothing... is that person nothing?

I am horrified at the little we accept, at the mediocre and lukewarm prayers we pray. We allow our well-worn and time honoured traditions around communication and lifestyles to rule us. We truly let molehills become mountains in our lives by refusing to step out in faith and courage.

I am sick to death of the mediocre in me. I want to slam it into a wall and never let it up again. I want to rise to every challenge God puts in my way, even if the challenge is learning how to be grateful. I don't want to accept a mediocre gratitude from myself, I don't want to pay lip service to anything I do. My church, my neighbourhood, my country, my world is in bed with mediocrity and I know there are some righteous souls out there kicking lukewarm in the ass and winning and I want to be a part of that.

What about you?

Things you may or may not know about me

2008-01-06T19:09:00.000-08:00

I have a huge phobia around bubbles. I am not afraid of them however, I find them repulsive.
I am a pool shark - I can beat most of all y'all.
I cannot eat anything that is too mushy - whipped cream and mashed potatoes are out. Also, no milkshakes, this is just mushy plus bubbles which is doubly disgusting.
I love bunnies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have read War and Peace several times and I love it.
I didn't know my Dad's real first name till I was nine. His name was Keith but my Mother called him Mike. Actually I have many many family members who we call things other than their real names.
When I was 7 I was convinced I knew exactly how to build a fully operational replica of the Loch Ness Monster.

Time & Stuff

2007-11-30T00:59:00.000-08:00

I am finding that I just don't want to do anything. Well not anything that is now currently available to me to do. I either want to do something completely new and unexpected, or I want to do nothing at all. I think it is this time of year. It's the waiting for the celebration and the coming event. I just want it to be here. And also, something about wanting time to slow down. Maybe it's not that I don't want to do anything, maybe it's just that I want all of the "stuff" done so I can enjoy the moments. Enjoy the beauty. Soak it in without interruption.

I realize that's not realistic, but I just want to be in a chalet somewhere in the mountains for a month, and bake and take hot baths and read and hear the snow crunch under my feet while I look up at an early moon, and have my family there for about half the time and time to myself for the other half the time.

Time, I know it should be in God's hands. He does way better things with it than I can. I just want to be a better steward of what He's given me. I am grateful that I can hear the snow crunching in my head,that I can smell it in my memory, that I can remember what the heavy purple of the sky looks like just before it's gonna let go of it's payload, that I can feel that moment of delight before you put the very first footprints in it. I need to remember this more.

Tag - I'm it.

2007-11-17T13:05:00.001-08:00

So, I was "tagged" by my dear friend Joanna. I had no idea what that meant till I read on and discovered it was a blogger game we can all play...yay!!! Truly "Jeux Sans Frontières " for you Peter Gabriel fans out there.

Here are the rules: You must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. (If you don't have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.) When you are tagged you need to write your own blog-post and then choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

My middle name is Leah which was a matter of much controversy as a young girl as my closest friends can attest to.

This is my response to the tag.

L - Lamentations 3:22-24 is one of my all-time favourite bible verses.
22 Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."

E - English. The language that is. My favourite book as a five year old was the dictionary. I am made supremely happy by listening to people use the language in the way it was intended. I do not enjoy the bastardization of it. I may love the way other languages sound in my ear, and have always aspired to learn them, but I am an unabashed fan of the King's English.

A - Absurd. This would be my favourite type of humour. It is why I love British humour i.e., Monty Python or Fawlty Towers or M*A*S*H* or why I laugh my head off at things that are not easily explainable. It also describes an evening with my family. Or a board game with my Mother. It is what makes me snort out loud at the same time that I laugh so hard (but quietly) till tears run down my face. It is the humour best enjoyed when you are by yourself because if it's absurd to you it may not be to someone else so it could be embarrassing for you if you are in public when you find it funny whereas when you are in private you have free reign to laugh even if you are inwardly ashamed of the fact that you find that situation funny.

H - The Hydrangea is my favourite flower. Well actually it's a shrub, but a flowering one. I don't know if many people know this but if I had money to spare one of the little things I would spend it on would be having fresh flowers in the house at all times. When I look at a hydrangea in bloom, I think of the house I raised my daughter in. We had the most beautiful hydrangea in the neighbourhood because when my grandfather planted it in the sixties, he put a bag of galvanized steel nails under it and it caused the highest degree of variegation that I have ever seen in a single bush. It is a plant that causes me to think of God and the marvellous works He has done. Yeah, it would also be my wedding bouquet if ever I was to get married.

So, I get to tag four people because I have four letters in my middle name. I choose to tag Anne, Joanna (who may have sent me this post but did so under the auspice's of her daughter's middle names), J'aime & Ryan. You may play or not, as you choose of course.

One Notable Exception

2007-11-15T12:55:00.000-08:00

As I said in my last blog I can be extremely gracious and forgiving and patient with young people. Except in one area. I started noticing a few years ago and have seen it be played out now numerous times that, in particular, Christian young people are insanely judgemental - harshly and unforgivingly so - toward other Christian young people.

I knew a young girl, upwards of 19, who had spent the previous few years, as we all have the tendency to do, partly struggling and partly succeeding at her faith. She was well liked in her church and was in a position of leadership and had either led many friends to a faith in Christ, or had simply supported others when they were flailing and had helped them get back on to solid ground. Then there came a time of backsliding and struggle in her life and these same Christian friends, some of whom she had guided and helped on their walk, judged her, got angry with her and then, quite simply, walked away. And I don't mean in that "healthy tough love kind of way when you tell a person you will be there for them, that you love them but that you simply can't endorse their lifestyle, however, you will be there when they wake up and realize that they can't live that way anymore". Noooo I mean in the "angry, judging, self-righteous we can't be friends with you or we might get some of that on us way."

This response is a direct result of young christians needing the people around them to be perfect; to never display the behaviours they have no understanding of, or that they are afraid that they may fall into so they have to back away. The same way that certain people wont hug someone with aids for fear of catching it. They become mean spirited little pharisees looking for the flaws and the signs that say "this person should be cast out."

I have seen it again recently. Young christian girl, we'll call her Jane, starts backsliding, gets drunk a couple of times, stops going to her youth group, then her church. For some reason the main response seems to be some sort of harsh reactionary frustrated response. 99% of her christian friends throw up their hands in defeat and disappointment. There's the biggie. They are soooo disappointed with her they just don't know what to do except to talk about it amongst the group in order to congratulate themselves under the context of telling each other they really should pray about this poor sinner (yah, uh huh, just another form of gossip people). And, if she stopped the disappointing behaviours and came back to the fold don't think for one minute they run out to meet her, embrace her and make her feel redeemed and forgiven (think Prodigal Son). On the contrary, she would continue to be judged & watched, dissected & inspected to make sure that she was really clean.

I have heard christians giving other denominations like Jehovah's witnesses or the Amish or Mormons a hard time because they make the sinners in their congregations jump through hoops to get back in their good graces. I know that the Amish will shun you (and your whole family joins in) and you must go through tremendous efforts to get back into the family. It is a similar scenario if you are a Jehovah's Witness. Our template was supposed to be derived from Christ's interactions with sinners. He simply spoke to them in truth and love, never helping them deny or white wash their sins and then told them not to sin anymore and forgave a contrite heart. He didn't wait for people to be perfect for His company or His love in that "he died for them while they were yet sinners."

Wake up you snotty little brats. Stop judging your brother or your sister in Christ and go and sit and eat with them so that your faith, the one you are so afraid will crumple under the filth of association, will hold them up. Try for two seconds to remember that you are Christians and that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."

She is her father's daughter.

2007-11-14T22:15:00.000-08:00

I am great with kids, terrible with adults. That's the truth of it. Give me practically any situation (there is one notable exception) with someone under, well lets say even under the age of 24 probably, and I am patient and funny and I have all the compassion in the world for mistakes and struggles and they could ask me the same question like 4500 times and it just wouldn't frustrate me. Put me in the same situation with a fully grown adult and I simply have none of these qualities at all. They disappear and I become frustrated, impatient, and lose my cool.

This is something that I have to get better at. But it is not easy. I want to yell at them (the adults I mean) I want to shake them and tell them to just suck it up. I do not want to have to tip toe around their well-crafted and completely indoctrinated selves. The self that is so deeply tied to itself that they can't get around it. I do not want to take my time or diplomatically explain something. I do not want to have to aplogize for being blunt or articulate or making a point briefly or succinctly. I do not want to be politically correct or polite or wait for "consensus" hah, consensus what a joke. It takes up so much time. The smart people should just get their way. I just want to say "figure it out and do it my way." Man, I can so appreciate why my Dad thought everyone was so stupid. His favourite expression was "everything would go so much better if everyone just did it my way." Yah, I get it Dad.

I want people to be open to evolving, to transforming. I think that is why I can be patient with younger people. Because the thing is, that even if they don't want to, they are going to evolve. Whereas with older adults, they are only going to evolve if they want to, if they leave themselves open to the possibility of transforming. And that means letting Christ work in you daily, by the minute sometimes. You have to give Him permission and you are not going to give Him that permission unless you notice that you need to and you are not going to notice that you need to unless someone like me yells at you, gets impolite and tells you to change and to get it together!!!

At least that is what I like to tell myself when I have this fantasy that I don't have to work at letting Christ do the transforming in me that will help me translate the compassion and the patience that I have with His young ones to His slightly older ones.

Things I miss about my daughter.

2007-09-28T20:00:00.001-07:00

I miss watching Disney movies in the morning with my daughter.

Being able to watch Kratt's creatures because i have a daughter.

Creating blah parties for her. Actually having any kind of party for her.

Hearing all about her day...even the minutiae, especially the minutiae.

The bursts of energy that would be enough to create electricity for a small country (say Denmark) for a year...per burst.

Seeing an event, person, view, from her perspective.

Having notes left for me in the morning or waiting for me when I came home from work. One of my favourites read - "Gramma called you a monster! and she made fun of my face, then she beat me and threw my bunny in the garbage."

Knowing what her mood was first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

Having someone understand the depth of the statement "Oh, Ami, you are soooo hot."

Having someone understand the depth of the statement "Man, Eric is soooo hot."

Driving to Macs after midnight because we're both too awake to go to sleep but we need munchies to go with the movie.
Sitting in the bathroom just to talk while we take turns getting ready to go out or go to bed cause it's better than being in separate rooms.

I miss knowing that she'll be here to carve the pumpkin and roast the seeds.

There are so many things to miss and there are those things that I missed from earlier years that I continued to miss even when she still lived at home. This is being a Mother. You let go in little bits and pieces because you think that your kid is the greatest thing you know when they are 2 and when they are 5 and when they are 8 and when they are 12 and when they are 16 and when they are 21 and you hold them all in your heart like they are 21 children instead of just one. Because you had a chance to know them all and you like them all, and you miss them all. And you always will.

My New Year's

2007-09-24T23:58:00.000-07:00

So, I lied a little. Maybe mislead you is a better way of putting it. I am not ready to write about all the good things in Autumn yet. However, I want to say that September has always been my version of New Year's Day; my version of new beginnings. It is the time of year I feel the most motivated to do new things, to try and succeed at everything I think I should succeed at. I get a glimpse of the way that I want to be living and for a brief time I feel capable of pulling it all off. This includes just about every aspect of my life.

Oh yah, I'm gonna lose all the weight I need to and start a reasonable fitness routine I can stick to, so I can be in phenomenal shape.

I'm gonna learn at least 6 new recipes and slow down and enjoy my food more.

I will read all the books that are sitting on my bookshelf and at least two that good friends have recommended.

I will finish one project a month that have been sitting in boxes waiting to be completed (this includes learning to sew really really well)

I will be a better parent to my daughter (yes, I know that she's not with me anymore but I suppose you should always try and get better at stuff)

I will get better at saving money and budgeting.

The list goes on and on, every year something gets added but few things get taken off.
One thing that remains a constant on this list for me every day is - Get better at being a disciple. I know the benefits of this one, I know what it does for me. I know the payoff of a daily devotional time, steady and consistent prayers, reading, digesting and memorizing scripture. This shouldn't be a hard one cause I've already been there. Gotten good at it, seen the results. So how is it that there is backsliding in this area. How does the discipline disappear soooo quickly. All I know is that this year, this Septembers New Years Day, it is at the very top of my list and the thing that should come before all others.
"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Matthew 6:33

Seasons do change

2007-09-23T15:36:00.000-07:00

It is my first "first day of Fall" without my daughter living with me.

For many years now, autumn has been my favourite season. It is full of memories and childhoods merging and coming together. It is the season in which I have the clearest memories as a child and the season I feel most connected to as a mother.

What will this season feel like this time then?

One of my goals over the past few years has been to truly feel everything that is happening to me or around me. To open myself up to the experience in the moment and be "present and available" as a wise priest once taught me. To be present and available to whatever God is giving unto this particular season of my life. There has been much to feel in the way of grief for me and those closest to me in years of late, and part of the journey is to allow that in so you don't close up and numb yourself to the joy when it comes as well.

My dear friends daughter died many years ago and I dreamed of her last night. It was a bittersweet dream full of hope and promise, but she was only allowed to come and visit us in the dream for a couple of days and as the dream went on I tried every phone number I could remember in an attempt to get a hold of my friend so that she could see her daughter one more time. When I woke up I still hadn't reached her and now I feel that I need to tell her about the dream. I have had dreams about Kira before and they usually feel like a visit more than anything. In this one, I touched her face and I can still remember what it felt like.

I remember at times like this that instead of looking at this day as a day without my daughter, to look at it as a day to give thanks for all the first days of Autumn I had with her - so many more than my friend got to have.

So, the next time I write, it will be about all of the wonderful parts of this season that I am grateful for, and I truly hope to be authentic about that because I have paid attention to the sorrow and the pain and they are the hoeing and the raking of the soil that allows a new thing to grow in it's time and it's season.

Yes, I am Canadian.

2007-09-22T21:18:00.000-07:00

This is probably a really weird topic to start a blog with but not a lot of things have really stopped me in my tracks lately.

I was looking at the msn.ca headlines of the day and I saw one that got my attention. "Canadian dollar reaches parity." Now I knew, from an earlier remark from my mother that the dollar had reached the high nineties that day, but I had been busy when she said it and hadn't really taken it in. I clicked on the article, which was a video report of the days events and, as I heard the closing bell sound on the days trading and saw that the dollar, my dollar, was worth 100 pennies, I completely teared up. My heart soared.

Two things; First of all, what a whacked perspective if as a christian the dollar can make me emotional and two, yes, I know that it is an up and down thing and I also know that we pay a price as a nation when our dollar is high because of manufacturing and blabbity blah blah blah, but...
I am a forty-three year old Canadian who last saw the dollar be a dollar when I was 13 years old. I have dealt with my very unchristian anti-American sentiments very wholeheartedly in the past couple of years thanks in large part to some amazing and freakishly cool yankee friends (shout out to Tony & Ryan in particular). I may still entirely disagree with their foreign policies and a whole raft of other things, but the Lord certainly has done some work in my heart over "loving thy neighbour, even if they are american." So, my response wasn't "oh fantastic, their economy finally sucks and ours is better", it was a far deeper part of my fabric that welled up. For whatever reason, i was born in Canada and feel that to the marrow. It is not something I think about on a regular basis, although I am probably slightly more nationalistic that some I know. I will generally buy Canadian if I have any choice. I rail against American giant companies buying up ours (hudson's bay is a recent and good example of this), I still know what a chesterfield is, I don't believe I will ever take the u out of words like neighbour and honour etc. and I do change my spell checker to Canadian English. I have caught myself saying oot instead of out and I roll my r's from time to time. My family history is Canadian as far back as the Settled beginnings of Canada, which would be the early 1700's, and I was raised knowing that and feeling it. However, as I've gotten older it's flavour is not that I am Canadian because I am opposed to this or because I am Canadian because I am not American (this was very much this countries identity crisis when I was in my teens and well into my early thirties), it is "I am Canadian because that's just part of who I am based on where I live and how I have experienced the world and all I know through this particular filter."
So, because of all those things and because the one thing that I have looked at and not tuned out on in the nightly portion of the news when they talk about stock values etc. (excuse me yawn) has been the value of the Canadian dollar, I had a profound moment of pride in a benchmark not reached for thiry years, and I am ok with that.