lyef & thymes

Salty Dog

2009-01-21T15:49:00.002-04:00

Been a while...four month or so. Have had a few thoughts in the meantime.

Hope is the substance of things longed for, the presence of things unseen.

Christ in me is the hope of glory.

A little transliteration then kind of says:

Christ in me, the substance of glory longed for, the presence of glory unseen.

It's been a quest for me for sometime now to become invisible. Not in a superhero kinda way, or in a "I'm not gonna shine, cause I don't want people to notice me" kinda way. Quite the opposite actually.

I'm going for the kind of life that is so bright that people can't look right at it, but instead must look slightly past it, or up, or to the side. I want to be un-look-at-able, while still inspiring people. I think that I (we) excuse myself from greatness because of some twisted idea of what humility means, as if somehow it requires that we do nothing out of fear of being noticed, and somehow developing an inflated sense of pride in ourselves.

I refuse to be thus crippled from being effective in the Kingdom, and at the same time I know that I need to completely rely on Christ in order to shine in the first place. I have no glory of my own. I will have no glory apart from His glory, but have the Hope of glory alive and well inside of me.

I guess I am feeling the strain between the life of the flesh, and the life of the spirit; the Kingdom of Jacob and the Kingdom of God. Having already made my choice, I find myself on the pilgrimage that is a lifetime of leaving the one for the other.

Lord I thank you that I don't turn into a pillar of salt as I occasionally look back.

A break from the series, for a few words

2008-09-04T17:11:00.002-03:00

Was reading some bible and I saw something cool. Spoke to a good friend about it and want to share some more here.

Ever hear someone tell you that the Kingdom of God suffers violence, and the violent take it by force? Do you believe that? Do you even believe that it is Jesus who tells us this? I submit that this is a deeply misused verse. On the surface it seems to be telling us that it is the violent/forceful ones who get the kingdom, or that we need to be active in the claiming of the kingdom. Jesus is telling us "the kingdom of God suffers violence, and the violent take it by force" right?

Wrong. There is a deeper context here. Allow me to bring to light the entire passage.

"Assuredly I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater that John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come..."

this is the same speech where Jesus informs us "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Jesus is telling us that the law and the prophets, even up to John the Baptist who he identifies as Elijah, these all received the kingdom through force. Up to John, even Jesus says, up to now, that is how it was done. But to take it by force, born of a woman rather than born of the spirit and entering into his rest, positions you in the category of 'least' in the kingdom.

Jesus is saying that no longer must the kingdom suffer violence, no longer must it be taken by force, but rather we can carry an easy burden, of resting in him. The question I have had since this conversation, and what I really want to talk about here is, why the heck is that so hard to do?

I think it's because resting in Jesus brings us face to face with him, and as much as we love Him, coming face to face with Him is a whole lot like climbing into a steaming hot jacuzzi. It's a little too hot at first to really feel comfortable, but eventually you reach the point where you don't want to leave. I have recently been given loads of time to spend however I like, and I am amazed at the base things I will turn to for comfort before thinking to turn to Jesus. I will watch movies, listen to music, even read my bible, all without legitimately acknowledging that I am called to rest in the spirit.

This poem comes from the reflections I have had on the matter.

The gift of pain (love)

before me the hill,
rising from the city into the sky
onto the horizon,
the threshold,
the crossing over

behind me comfort
ease and familiarity
mindsets, blankets
a sleeping child
dormant and unthinking

before me a man,
a need,
unfulfilled longing
waiting, sweating, bleeding.
long into the night
prayer without ceasing
his mind always on me

the gift of love
the crucified Christ
the man who died for another
the gift of pain
the one who knew no sin
to become sin for me

before me the fiery furnace of love
the life of the spirit calling me forth
calling forth life,
calling for a life.

Before me a choice,
give me every last scrap of you
and you can have every last scrap of me

behind me nothing
nothing to lose,
nothing to gain

Up the hill is the man who gives all
the man who requires all
step after after step
weight that crushes me
the yoke of the loved
passed onto the lover

the gift of pain (love)
before me a choice
cast all your sins on me
then look upon me and be saved
take my yoke and I will carry yours

My Childhood years

2008-07-30T17:18:00.010-03:00

Thus continues my series on the geographical history of my life. This constitutes my pre-school years, even though I make mention of later years.

My Infant years I know only through hearsay. But geographically I was living in a part of Nova Scotia called the Annapolis Valley. In 1604 Annapolis royal was founded, making it the oldest permanent settlement in Canada. It is still a celebrated historical site.

As for me, I lived the town of Kentville, nestled between the North and South Mountains that lined the valley. I believe that it resides below sea level, but I am not sure. Let me consult google...elevation 31 meters, oh balls. Well none the less, I lived in surrounding towns in this area until I was 9, so let these pictures express my childhood until the age on 9 when I left Nova Scotia.

Below is a map of the province, and Kentville is to the west of Halifax, on the opposite bay. It's an hour's drive across the width of the province, and eight hours across the length. The island of Cape Breton is still home to my Grandmother, and I have many fond summer memories from North Sydney there.

next is a photo of the Apple blossom parade. While the town was only home to about 5000 people, over ten thousand would show up for this day. I remember walking towards the parade with great anticipation and the candy that would be thrown to the kids in the crowd, and I also recall the extreme boredom that I experienced shortly after eating my candy, and wishing we could just go home.

Cape Split is pictured below because of my love for hiking there. I have brought friends from Toronto, Minnesota, and Ottawa there just to hike the 5 mile trail into the woods and camp out for a few nights. But as regards my childhood, this picture represents the water more than the hike. I am told now that my love of the ocean, and water in general comes from my early years when my father was a shift worker at a tire plant. He would get off work and, exhausted, take our family to the beach where he would promptly pass out on the sand, and my sister and I would swim unsupervised for hours.

finally, a photo of Halls Harbour, up on the North Mountain. My parents divorced, and my father remarried, taking my sister and I to live in our new house up on the mountain. It was so far from anyone else that I couldn't walk to the nearest neighbors. The nearest "town" was Halls Harbour, an old fishing community, where I would often fish off the pier. It is to my grandfather that I owe my love of fishing. It has waned in recent years, but as a child I could bait a hook, line a bobber, and reel in a trout, cod, flounder, whatever. I loved to fish, and to this day there is no greater thrill for me than that of reeling in a catch.

Grace, I call your name

2008-06-10T11:58:00.005-03:00

I was born on Dec. 1st, 1978 in Grace Maternity Hospital, Halifax Nova Scotia.

A storied and beautiful building, it has been decommissioned as a Hospital, and its current uses are not know to me. An indie band was formed by four guys who discovered a common theme, they were all "Grace Babies". I guess I am too.

The Geographical history of ME - An Introduction.

2008-06-06T19:10:00.002-03:00

Geography is not meaningless to me. The places I have lived are spectacularly important in my life, past and present. The mundane places that we live accomplish so much more in us than any of the places that we visit. As an aside, I feel that this is meant to be true in the Spirit as well as in the natural. That the visitations we have of the Spirit, those signposts we erect in our human thinking of an event with God, are less important to Him than where we live day to day.

There have been times in my life when sin has abounded, and I would validate my life by the fact that God still visited me. OF COURSE HE VISITED ME, I'M HIS FREAKING SON! But he was still deeply concerned about where I was living.

Still, my point is that I am going to paint a picture of my life with some photos of where I have lived, and maybe some artwork, I don't know. I have lived in some places more than once, so look for some repeats, in different contexts that should serve to paint a picture of where I was at when I lived there.

Thus begins a new series at HimynameisJacob,

The Geographical history of ME.

TEXA(N)S IS HOT.

2008-06-05T19:05:00.002-03:00

I have been in Texas for the last week, and now sit in the cafe at IHOP in Kansas City. It's been 6 weeks since life has seemed normal. First it was emptying the apartment, then Carolyn heading home first, then wedding, chicago, Texas, now KC, and the future is still formless and void.

Adventure...right, the Indiana Jones version of adventure always ends with the Indy smiling. Most recently, with a girl in his arms. Have you noticed how the best adventure stories are wrought from danger and mishap? True there is always a sense of mission, of aim, direction, promise, and my life has those is spades right now, but my goodness, when I said "Lord make my life an adventure", I think I forgot how tense it can be sometimes.

Carolyn and I are doing great, having so much fun, and getting a great deal of sun along the way, but I find that the one thing I crave most at this point is normalcy. Our own bed, for example.

Nothing deep here, just an update.

Love.

Raleigh is Beautiful

2008-05-08T19:34:00.002-03:00

Oh my goodness, Raleigh is beautiful. There are so many trees, the air is more lush than I could have imagined. Just breathing feels like life itself.

Everywhere we go we see unbelievable houses, incredible greenage, and sunshine galour.

I can't wait to come back here.

Waiting on the Lord

2008-04-30T16:24:00.002-03:00

I have been waiting tables at Swiss Chalet for the last few weeks, and will continue doing so for the next few weeks before the move to Raleigh.

I am learning some strange and interesting things during my time there. For example, if you think that Canada has no class struggle, no semblance of the caste system, you are mistaken. There are loud, angry, non-english speaking dishwashers at Swiss Chalet that work terrible hours, for terrible money. They will never be promoted in their jobs, and will never receive a raise. They entered into a certain caste and will remain there as long as they are with the company. I break a dish, they clean it up.

Similarly, there are cooks in the kitchen who are much smarter, and faster and better organized than their waiter counterparts, but they are equally stuck in their caste. Finally there are the waiters who get paid the most, and do the least. I am one of these.

Another lesson is that you cannot judge a book by its cover, and you cannot judge a tipper by their appearance. The best tips I have received have been from the least likely of sources. Scuzzy trashy heavy drinkers tip the best. The neatly dressed family of four on their way to soccer practice tipped me 8% last night, while the white trash parents of three, in their early twenties, drooling grandma in tow, tipped 25%. You can't predetermine the potential in a person by their appearance, or for that matter, by how other similar folks have treated you in the past.

More on this subject to come soon...

Layers of time have buried the lost choices.

2008-03-11T12:24:00.003-03:00

In the famous days of the enlightenment, the time when human thought was reaching new heights, when ideas where being shaken, and the alignment of values were shifting, it was the twenty somethings who did the shaking, and the realigning. The poets, artists, mathematicians, philosophers, and educated people in general at that time lost their taste for radical greatness as/if they lived into their thirties.

I bring this up because of a fellow I spoke to yesterday who had just decided to retire. He had worked the same job for more than half of his 65 years, and he was terrified of the immensity of the change. I asked him if he could remember having the same level of trepidation in his decision to take that job, or to choose the career path in general. He could not remember any.
I commented to him that perhaps the fear was a function of the finality of it, and how we lose our taste for making final decisions as we live longer and longer. He got a little choked up as he thought about it and eventually commented that he was a fearless young man, but had since become mostly afraid of the future.

I think that experience does not always lead us in the right directions. Often our experiences involve loss, and suffering, which leads us to fear. I think that experience does not always lead us to a place of faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the presence of things unseen.

Lately I have been making decisions based on the substance of things that already exist, not the presence of things unseen. I have resolved to change this attitude and live instead in a position of Faith. That means that I can't be too afraid to make a decision, or walk a certain direction just because I don't know what's down that road. I think of the famous Robert Frost poem and the trouble we have choosing which road to take. We are so imaginative that we can picture the life we will live if we walk down either of the roads that diverge in the yellow wood. We can imagine it so fully and effectively that we "are dead with deciding, afraid to choose. For [we are] mourning the loss of the choices [we'd] lose".

But we forget that the choice we make will be beautiful, and important, and good. I am in the first phase of the "post-significant choice" stage in my life. Carolyn and I have decided to take the road less traveled, and move to another city to begin a new church planting church plant. It's terribly exciting. We look forward with great anticipation the amazing things that we will learn, see, do, try to do, succeed in doing, fail at doing, and all the bumps and scrapes that will come along the way.

Similarly, we are mourning the loss of our life here. Many of our friends have expressed their sadness that we will be moving away, and we share that sentiment. There has been a degree of shunning within our community, some awkward re-drawing of boundaries with some loved ones, and altogether discomfort in handling the news, but we know that even the painful reactions are done out of deep love for us. I know that as time moves forward, the sense of loss will just become fertilizer in which the future will grow. Layers of time have buried the lost choices of the past, and as I look back I see a beautiful life. I know that will become increasingly true as I keep moving forward, choosing one road over another, walking through the yellow wood.

Lies! All LIES!!!!

2008-02-19T16:23:00.002-04:00

So.... I told a lie at work the other day, and the strangest thing happened. I felt so convicted of the sin of lying that I went back and told the truth, to my own detriment. The story is that I was late, and lied about bad traffic on the road. No biggy, but then I was compelled to go back and tell my co-worker "deb, truth is I over-slept. It had nothing to do with the traffic. I don't know why I said that."

My first thought about this interchange is not all that deep, namely, that lies are bad.
What's more, there aren't actually different degrees of lies, but God sees our sin and can convict any of us, any of the time, about anything, we do, and be right in doing so.

Things is, it's sin, and only sin that keeps us from the Father. Think there's something more to it, feel free to disagree. I think that scripture leads us to believe that we have fallen short of the Glory of God, which means that our purpose and direction before falling short, was the Glory of God. If that is truly where we were heading before falling short, then believe me, it is still our
destination. It was sin that stopped us getting there, but not forever.

So I'm at work, I've lied, and the Lord convicts me of the act, enabling me to see the sin and deal with it, which is to say, to turn from it and walk the other way. In the end I am left with less sin holding me back from God, and further, from His Glory.

But surely we needn't be concerned with our sin, since we now know Jesus, and walk in faith right? Jesus died on the cross, and defeated sin, freeing us from it's sting. Confusing, but then we are told to daily pick up our cross and follow Christ, and what was the cross if not the ultimate price of sin. So we take up our cross which is our reminder of the ultimate price of sin. We don't need to nail ourselves to it, just carry it. It doesn't kill us, but it does make us aware of the price that was paid for us.

I think, then, that the conviction that comes from Christ leads us, not to shame, or death, but to Glory.

Thoughts?

Lesson from a funeral

2007-12-17T10:18:00.000-04:00

My grandmother passed away last week, and we held a funeral for her on saturday. It was an interesting and moving service. The minister who gave the message had never met my grandmother, and tried his best to make due based on the stories from my family. But then there was the family itself. We all contributed something to the service. My cousins and I sang I'll Fly Away to start the ceremony., and a few notes into the song my grandfather, sat in the front row of course, broke down and began to weep.

Even now, sitting at a computer writing about it, the memory is so evocative. So I thought I would say a few words about it, and about my grandmother.

Gertrude Froese (nee Enns), was married to John Froese for fifty six years and they had six children together. They were both german mennonites living in Russia in the 1920's during the Russian Communist Revolution, when anyone resisting the communist manifesto was subject to terrible violence. Separately the Enns and Froese families moved to Manitoba and Saskatchewan respectively, and have lived in Canada ever since.

My grandparents lived in the Yukon together in the early days of their marriage, and then moved to Winnipeg, then back to the Yukon, then to Nova Scotia, then Ontario. They had little money, and little stability, but they had each other, and for almost six decades that was enough.

Now my grandfather is a widower, and yet as I stood singing at the front of this small room, watching him weep, I knew that he didn't weep for himself, lamenting his new sorry state. He wept because the love of his life had moved on to a place that he could not yet follow, and the separation, the loss, the absence was crushing.

Hugging him, and returning to my seat at the completion of the song, I sat beside my wife, took her hand, and allowed an entirely new depth of love for her pour into me. My grandfather's tear are an indication, a marquis displaying to any who would look and read, that a life spent in love with another is a good life, and the pain of one's passing does not diminish that love, it only serves to embed it deeper into one's soul.

Life lessons from the can

2007-12-14T09:44:00.000-04:00

Carolyn and I have been watching over a few young children for the past week. Their parents are close personal friends of ours, and they have gone to Paris on their honey moon, finally after ten years together.

The boys we are looking after are two and four years old. This has been an eye opening experience, full of firsts for me.

-First poopy diaper change (and the second, and the third)
-First time walking a kid to school ( he likes to get close to the moving cars)
-First time my wife and I have slept in someone else's bed together (weird...no further comment)
-First time that our sleep has been interrupted by a squealing toddler.

It has been an educational week, that's for certain. Stress is a an excellent scalpel, peeling back the layers of skin that we allow to grow over things. Being this stressed out, for this long has made both of us greatly appreciate the solitude and quiet of our home life together.

anyhoo, I think I hear a cartoon calling.

A word in season

2007-12-04T11:55:00.000-04:00

Just had a great talk about church planting with a student in the Anglican stream. His name is John, and he is a liturgical man through and through. Nevertheless, he has chosen to learn what he can from other streams that are having more success that his own. I just shared with him for half of an hour about how TACF Central came into being.

Turns out that I have a lot more to say that I would have thought. Maybe I like church planting. Might even be passionate about it. Huh, the Lord does speak to us, and revelation often comes in unexpected forms. Sharing what we know, about something we love, ignites passion to do that thing.

Maybe church planting is in my future, Lord knows.

Governance

2007-08-18T11:36:00.001-03:00

I have been reading an incredible book called The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse. He's probably my favorite author, and this is the book he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Lieterature for having written. In it Hesse's main character, Magister Ludi Joseph Knecht notes that "faith is governed by doubt". I like this as a concept, although I don't completely agree.

The Thesis is, and it is the article, but the article doesn't stand alone. Instead it is governed by the antithesis. In this case faith in the realm of the mind, in the intellectual asceticism sought by Knecht is governed by his doubts that this is truly the ultimate ideal. In the book there is an individual expression at the epicenter of higher thought, called the glass bead game. It is the synthesis of all intellectual streams, and is revered as a religious rite. Knecht believes in the purity and importance of the game. He has faith in the game, but also has doubts about the game's singular hold as the pinnacle of thought. His faith is governed by his doubt. Due to his doubts he must delve further and deeper into the mysteries of the game, ultimately becoming the player who most completely exemplifies the virtues of the game, despite his doubts.

I am not sure that faith is governed by doubt, but I do believe that growth is governed by struggle. The individual comfortable in each and every area in his being is unlikely to become anything greater than he currently is. I don't suggest greatness in the sense of esteem, but literally in size, strength, in ability to accomplish greater exploits.

For example, I have heard it said that we need to be comfortable being single before we are ready to be in a relationship. This is probably bollocks. If I met a woman who was truly happy and comfortable, and at peace with solidarity, then she has no need of me, and I best not disturb her contentedness. No, I think that what we see in truth is this; it is our dissatisfaction with our single state that we see our true need for companionship.

There are positive impetus as well, don't get me wrong. Infatuation is like our heart's little trick to convince our minds to make lifetime decisions that it would otherwise shy away from. In the place of being deeply attracted to a person, we smile and blush, and make promises and pacts that are far to high and lofty to be certain of, but we agree nevertheless.

All of this is to say, it is only when we become discontent with our current state that we are moved to another, most often higher state. The challenge is in climbing from one to the next. It is this challenge, struggling against the difficulty of achieving new goals, new ability, new character, that ultimately creates within us the faculties necessary to exist there successfully.

This is the order of things when we are following God. He enamors us, in his love, reveals to us his beauty, then calls us to heights we would never naturally think that we could reach. We, lovestruck, shout YES LORD, I WILL GO FOR YOU! And then we set out. If we were simply translated up onto the mountain top, we wouldn't have the strength to withstand the winds that blow over those peaks. We need the climb. We NEED the climb, and so God, in his mercy, allows us the lengthy climb. He desires to be with us in that place, in holiness, set-apartness, but is patient like we could never imagine. So he patiently lets us struggle our way up the mountain, building new muscle all the time.

Struggle governs growth. Lifting weights brings about more growth that simply raising your arms. The struggle, pushing against a force, causes us to change, to become what we are not.

I was born at a very early age

2007-08-16T11:30:00.000-03:00

...and since that time I have been waiting patiently (sometimes less so) for the object of my love to appear. She has done so, and I am marrying her in 30 days.

That is all.

Post-modernism Speaks again

2007-07-29T15:41:00.000-03:00

I have been thinking some more about how we offer meaning to things. We observe what is and then file it into a meaningful definition. What is more, we then quickly forget that we have done this, if we were ever aware of it in the first case. We immediately begin to view the thing originally observed or experienced as though it has always had this particular definition.

This is what was so revolutionary about the post-modern deconstruction. Thinkers began to challenge this idea, saying first that nothing has any meaning, and later that life its self has no meaning.

I will offer an impractical example to get us started:

In an average school gymnasium you will often find a great number of crash mats along the walls. These are in place because children occasionally crash into the wall. These mats are often blue in colour. We have all observed this, and we all know that upon observing the mats that they exhibit a blue colour. But the truth is that these mats have no colour at all. I will explain what I mean.

The mats, like all matter that is visible to the human eye, has no colour on its own. The colour that we observe is actually reflected light. The mats absorb some colour of light, and reflect others. The properties of the material determine what colours of light are absorbed, and which are reflected, and our eyes observe these reflected lights.

Think I'm wrong? Well let me ask you this? What colour is that mat in the absense of light? In the dark, with no light reflecting off of it's surface, all non luminous material is black. It is only the light reflected off of the surface that provides its meaning.

I believe that the same is true of us. As we become more and more full of Holy Spirit, as our being is more and more conformed to the likeness of Christ in the Spirit, we reflect him more fully.

Jesus climbed the mountain, was transformed by the presence of God, and became more fully the likeness of God in human form. As such, he no longer absorbed the light that fell on him, but instead was able to reflect it.

A Red lens placed in front of a spolight causes the light emitting from the bulb to appear red. This is because the red lens absorbs all the colours from the original light, except the colour red.

I want to be made of stuff that reflects God, rather than absorbing it.

Oh what kind of Love is this!

2007-07-26T21:48:00.000-03:00

Can anyone inform as to the definition or meaning of "Splanixomai"?

Will be blogging again one day soon, you will see.

I have seen the spring

2007-04-02T17:27:00.000-03:00

I was walking down the street the other day when I was taken aback by an exciting sight. It was a red-breasted robin, and it is the harbinger of spring. The weather has warmed, and the snow is melted and gone, but weather can be treacherous. For example, there is a snow fall likely to come this weekend during the freshwind conference. But the presence of the robin says "don't be fooled by a random snow storm. Spring is truly here, and this flitty brown thing with the spot of red is your sure sign."

I like the spring. Bit muddy, but it kicks winter's ass for certain.

I received some well-earned scorn...

2007-03-06T00:32:00.000-04:00

So, my last post earned me some well earned scorn. People need to learn that I often have something up my sleeve.

Oh well, my fault for getting out of the car on the highway, I suppose. But all the same, this blog "lyef and thymes" will continue as my own autonomous blog for speaking about whatever pops into my head, and the one linked to somewhere in this post (let's see if they can find it) will be the "hey everyone, check out what's going on in the lives of Jacob and Carolyn" blog. I think it will be good to have both.

Speaking of speaking my mind, I learned this week that I can be extremely effective in the field of manipulation. I manipulated a dear friend twice in one day. I needed to distract my friend Andrew, so his girlfriend could coordinate his surprise party. I pulled out all that I knew about Andrew in order to trick him. He is highly compassionate, easily excited, and longs to connect with people, so I told him that Carolyn and I had some concerns that we wanted to talk to him about, and would he mind staying later after band practice (while the band went ahead to the party destination). Though Andrew wanted to go home and sleep, he even more greatly wanted to connect with us, as he was excited, and thinking that we had concerns, wanted to offer any help he could.

Later, at the party, it was time to give Andrew his gifts. The first of three (the only one as far as he knew) was a seven dollar athletic headband. Being the kindhearted gentleman that he is, he over-reacted to the gift, to show us his appreciation. Then I pulled out his second gift, telling him "oh, that was just a joke. Here's the real gift." It was a DVD that no-one in their right mind would desire to own. Again, feeling like the first gift was a set-up for this more thoughtful gift, Andrew over-reacted. He truly is a kind man.

Finally he received his real gift, a scarf that is pretty cool, and right up his alley, that he might actually wear. By now he was leary of showing emotion, fearful of the trick that might ensue. No trick, just lovin'.

Skip to the End...

2007-03-02T14:00:00.000-04:00

Last night was the worst snow storm Toronto has had all season. It took me over two hours to drive home, a drive that normally takes only fifteen minutes. It was crazy. The gentleman in the mercedes ahead of me kept skidding into the snow, so I hopped out of my car on the highway, and pushed him out, then hopped back into the car only to watch him re-enact the whole scene again.
He didn't understand why slamming the gas on ice was bad.

Then I finally got home, asked Carolyn to marry me, and she said yes. What a day.

love is in the air, and in the city.

2007-02-24T13:54:00.000-04:00

Mark Samuel Hardy and Bethany Elaine Ventura will soon be wed. This inevitability has been waiting to spring up, take root, and blossom. And in only four days the beginning of the last stage of their romance begins.

It's been an amazing few months as regards love and Toronto. Jeremy and Shannon have returned to Toronto, a married couple whom I love love love. Pudd and Maija are here. Now Bethany and Mark, Andrew and Sarah, Jon and Laura, Jon and Sarah, Linda and Sam, the Hollemas have found love, Jon long and Ramlin, and I've met some other new couples, Ryan and Alee for example. There are so many couples in my life. For that matter I am in a pairing of my own with the wonderful K-Rollin'. (she doesn't know anything about this blog, so I get to call her whatever I like.

It is a good time to be thinking about starting life together in Toronto.

Niebuhr's thoughts on sin.

2007-02-13T02:28:00.000-04:00

I borrowed this from my friend Ry Flyer. Check him out in my friends bar.

Whatever your views are concerning Niebuhr, his insight into the human condition must be taken into account. Check this out: "Sin is rebellion against God. If finiteness cannot be without guilt because it is mixed with freedom and stands under ideal possibilities, it cannot be without sin (in the more exact sense of the term) because man makes pretensions of being absolute in his finiteness. He tries to translate his finite existence into a more permanent and absolute form of existence. Ideally men seek to subject their arbitrary and contingent existence under the dominion of absolute reality. But practically they always mix the finite with the eternal and claim for themselves, their nation, their culture, or their class the center of existence. This is the root of all imperialism in man and explains why the restricted predatory impulses of the animal world are transmuted into the boundless imperial ambitions of human life. Thus the moral urge to establish order in life is mixed with the ambition to make oneself the center of that order; and devotion to every transcendent value is corrupted by the effort to insert the interests of the self into that value. The organizing center of life and history must transcend life and history, since everything which appears in time and history is too partial and incomplete to be its center. But man is destined, both by the imperfection of his knowledge and by his desire to overcome his finiteness, to make absolute claims for his partial and finite values. He tries, in short, to make himself God" (81-82). Niebuhr, Reinhold. An Interpretation of Christian Ethics. New York: Meridian Books, 1956.

Thus the moral urge to establish order in life is mixed with the ambition to make oneself the center of that order.

Wow, that really spits my own limitted views of the world, and my work in it in my face. In two ways really. In one way I am clearly too small in my vision of the world, in that I mostly just live with my own reflection in view, but also in that my impact on the world is so much farther reaching than I want to admit. My efforts and exertions ripple out, and changed someone else's reality, and then I cease to be the center of that ripple, and they become it. Jesus did this all the time, with an eye on the Father, and an eye on his fellow man. He never tried to be the center of his own movement. He let his message go out and change the world.

Not really gonna address what Niebuhr says about sin, because he already says it so well.

Interconnectedness

2007-02-13T02:09:00.000-04:00

In 1999 I was standing in line to enter a movie theater in Dublin, Ireland. It was on the main road, so there were many passersby, and surprisingly among them was my friend Dave. He had moved to Dublin and married an Irish woman. So he saw me, I saw him, we did a few double takes then chatted for a while.

Earlier today, now nearing eight years on, Dave happened by my Starbucks in the mall. Once again we double-took, laughed, hi-fived, and then met up again after work to have a pint (or three...blush). I love the interconnectedness of life. Things that we thing are seperate aren't always so. Friends we have lost become found in a flash. Not that they are found in the geographical placement of being within a flash, but rather in the more metaphysical way.

So we met up again, chatted, it was good. He has returned to Toronto with his wife, and is a happy father now. Pretty impressive, but not as impressive as the fact that it took him only five minutes to catch me up on his events, and it took me the rest of the night to catch him up on mine. Seems that I can take even little things very seriously. Not entirely a bad thing, I think.

Now I'm the Supervisor!!!

2006-10-19T17:29:00.000-03:00

Having an interesting time at my new job. I was hired on August seventh, and trained on the floor by my co-workers. The training went pretty well, and I started to excell at my job. Then I was promoted, and now all the folks who showed me how to do my job are expected to listen to me when I tell them what to do.

For the most part it has been an easy transition, because my co-workers don't expect very much from me, and fill in the gaps. This means that they are stepping up a level in their own work, which shows that they had the potential to be great right from the start. Interesting.

So I wonder what comes of this. Through the whole exercise I am learning that leadership doesn't mean doing the best that you can, and doing all the work. It actually means imparting the vision, so that the next generation can do the stuff, with passion, until it's their time to lead.

Lyef and thymes are a changin'

2006-09-22T18:15:00.000-03:00

Blogging isn't going away.

I have a few friends are blogging less and less, which helps them form the idea that blogging is on the decline. I can't disagree, that I blog less than I did when I began. But I definately still blog, with some substance occassionally.

What is the psychology of a blogger? some jump straight into delving into their deepest thoughts and desires. Some go straight to posting photos and interesting stories they found online.

Thoughts? How does the journey of blogging affect the blogger?

What is your story?

A hard year, but...menh, whatev'!

2006-08-20T15:47:00.000-03:00

This last year I have eaten more cans of tuna than I thought possible, have paid for gas in pennies, have slept on the floor 300 consecutive nights, and have had five jobs lasting less than two weeks, all seemingly as a result of following God. How can this be? Read on.

Well, as the title suggests,It's been going on one year now that I have been living in Toronto again. Last August I was living in St. Stephen, had just finished a job with my university, and was very confused about where the future was heading. Then, in an attempt at a vacation, I drove to Toronto to attend the wedding of two friends. Turns out a lot more happened than just the wedding. The time frame coincided with another wedding, and TACF youth camp. I signed on to be a counselor, and arrived just in time to go to camp.

At camp I resumed contact with some old friends, and also met an incredible young woman, and we hit it off pretty well. On the thursday night of camp, God wrestled me to the ground, and began to speak to me of my future, and that it would be found in Toronto. So I started to think about it some. Duncan and Kate Smith, Youth and Young adult Pastors at TACF, said that I could jump right in to their leadership team/ Cell group. A Master bass player volunteered to take me on as a pupil, and I found an interesting education program to look into. A construction company agreed to hire me, and the pay would be fifteen an hour.

It was all very alluring, and obviously superior to just passing time in St. Stephen, so I made the leap, and on October 13th, 2005, I moved back to Toronto. This post is about what has happened since that time. Or some small taste of what's happened anyway.

When I returned to Toronto, the first person to meet me was the aforementioned girl. We had an exciting time of reconnecting, grabbing some coffee, and feeling out where things were headed. For about a month things seemed pretty good, but ultimately, the relationship never really got moving. She was a student in a school that was so heart-intensive, that it didn't really lend toward romance during the course of the school. In fact, it's actively frowned upon. As such, and in addition to various other causes, that relationship has been friends, full stop. A bit of a disappointment, as regards the excited young man moving to Toronto last year, but actually a divine circumstance, as regards the young man typing this post today.

Also very early in the year, I found that attaining gainful employment would prove to be difficult, and it remained so for quite some time. I worked for two weeks here, a week there, at all told five different jobs in the first four months of being here. That makes for a very frustrated, demoralized attitude towards work/employment. However, I have now found a job as a glorious barista.

Are you starting to see that things didn't really go as planned? Well don't fret, as I am still smiling.

I tried week in week out to start up a cell group, and for months only one person showed up. I invited people, prayed for people to come, and one guy came. As soon as a second guy came, the first guy quit. It was crazy. It went on like this for a few months, but now I am pleased to say that I have a great core group of guys who are present, whom I love, whom are themselves growing into leading cells.

Music has been interesting over the last year. Things didn't pan out at work, so I had very little money. Having very little money, I couldn't afford to take bass lessons. But instead, I started playing bass right away at a new downtown church plant, and that led to playing in the band at Freshwind, a major youth conference at TACF. Playing at Freshwind in Toronto led to playing at Freshwind in Texas, which led to meeting a lovely girl, which led to a subsequent relationship that is nearing two months on at this point. That is a happy surprise, believe me. Carolyn is her name, and our relationship is beautifully joyous, challenging, romantic, and exciting.

So let's recap: I came to Toronto expecting to work in Construction, lifting heavy things all day. Instead, I find myself indoors, surrounded by smiling people, and coffee. I was hoping to advance on the bass with an instructor, but instead have jumped right into the fire, playing nearly every week. I expected romance in one relationship, and found that there was none, but instead was totally surprised by it elsewhere. Altogether not too bad of a year, I must say. Absolutely nothing went the way I had planned it, but that's the adventure of following God, isn't it? I don't think I'll be getting off this ride any time soon.

How to relate this to math...

2006-08-15T12:22:00.000-03:00

i think I said I would blog about math, but this post seems unrelated...hmmmm...of course there is always a way to make it relate. One plus one equals two, that's math, isn't it?

See, this weekend I have played host to my girlfriend from Texas. It has been one of the most amazing weekends of my lifetime thus far, and later today she will be going back home. Seems like one plus one equals two, but two minus one equals only a half.

I know that I will speak to her this evening, on the phone. I know that I will see her in a few weeks in Texas. But it still hurts to say goodbye. Any advice on how to deal would be cool.

Till next time.

Centripetal Acceleration

2006-07-01T13:59:00.000-03:00

Centripetal Acceleration
Consider an object moving in a circle of radius r with constant angular velocity. The tangential speed is constant, but the direction of the tangential velocity vector changes as the object rotates.

If there was no understanding of centripetal acceleration, car manufacturers couldn't design suspensions, trucks would roll over everywhere, and we would all die horribly.

A New Direction in Lyef

2006-06-22T15:19:00.000-03:00

I have succumbed to the pressure of Linda Cho, among others, and have opened my very own myspace. You can find it here. It will be my day to day communique about what I am up to, and this blog will be my intellectual and spiritual playground, where I will discuss whatsoever slightly more substantial things that come along.

See you in the next post, where we will be discussing centripedal acceleration.

Jumping on the BAND wagon.

2006-06-16T23:04:00.000-03:00

I recently checked out some of my friends' blogs, and found that a few of them have gone to Texas to attend a youth conference. Well, so have I!!! (giggles at his own joke).

I am down here with my friends, playing bass in a worship band at this sweet church that has converted a strip mall into a church facility.

I'll write about that when the trip is over. For now I am too tired. Live, love, and I'll see you soon.

The Aforementioned series on important Math

2006-05-30T13:27:00.000-03:00

Sarah Gazaneo is an awesome person, and this series on important mathematical Theories is in no way a slight on her comment on how math never helped anyone.

In this, the first post of Mathematics, I thought we would start in INDIA with the advent of the Zero. Here is a clipping from an article about ZERO:

In Sanskrit (the scholarly language of the Hindus), the word for the zero is "sunya", meaning "void", and there is little doubt that the zero concept originated as the written symbol for the empty column of the abacus. The abacus had been used around the world since antiquity to provide a facile means of accumulating progressive products of multiplication by moving those products ever further leftward, column by column, as the operator filled the available bead spaces one by one and moved the excess over ten into the successive right-to-left-ward columns.

Number products in even tens (such as the number 20 or 30) leave the first right hand column empty (void). When expert abacus users had no abacus available to them, they could remember and visualize the operation of the abacus so clearly that all they needed to know was the content of each column in order to develop any multiplication or division.

They then invented symbols for the content of each column to replace drawing a picture of the number of beads. Having developed symbols to express the content of each column, they had to invent a symbol for the numberless content of the empty column -- that symbol came to be known to the Hindus as "sunya", and sunya later became "sifr" in Arabic; "cifra" in Roman; and finally "cipher" in English.

Why would this cipher be so important, you may ask? Well, try to solve this addition problem, will you:

CCLXVIII
MDCCCVII
DCL
+ MLXXX

Were you able to come up with the answer? It's pretty tough, in fact almost impossible to perform addition. Imagine multiplication without first converting it into Hindu-Arabic Numerals.

268
1807
650
+1080

The answer is MMMDCCCV, or 3805

This is almost impossible for the human mind to do, in the system of Roman Numerals, represented by letters. Only the supremely academic elete could perform mathematical functions, and they liked it that way. The Roman socio-political atmosphere protected those in power, so it was advantageous to keep knowledge down. I am not making this up, the number Zero, perceived by Aristotle, distributed to the masses first in India by any merchant who owned an abacus (there were lots), was responsible for the advance of Eastern thought, Science, and progress. The idea of Zero, the numerical understanding of nothing, and the position on the Abacus column with no beads, changed the world, and made possible the advance of civilization as we know it.

In fact, this knowledge was long supressed. Imagine the power you would hold if ONLY YOU could perform mathematical functions in your town. Only you could tell the workers how much money they had earned that day, or how much things should cost.

Zero changed the world.

In the loop?!?

2006-05-16T17:29:00.000-03:00

I was discussing Reincarnation with a friend. Don't ask. And we got onto an interesting point. I have heard it said that there are more human beings alive today than have every lived before. I don't know for sure that this is so, but mathematically, if everyone born had two children, and that is how the world was populated, then the 7 billion people alive today equal more than the sum total of all people every before. This arguement doesn't work, for a number of reasons, not least among them the fact that this would mean that there had only been 32 generations of people.

But aside from that, I was making the arguement that if there were more people alive today than had ever lived before, then there wouldn't be enough previous lives to make up for today's people. I meant this as an arguement debunking the idea of Karma and Reincarnation, but he saw right through it. "No No No, that's not what it means at all. What it really means is that we're doing quite well." He said that even if this mathematical fact were true, it could be used as a defense of re-incarnation, proving that more and more lives were coming back as humans. I had no response.

Maybe you do? Help me out on this one, will ya?

Taking heed to the call "Come out a little deeper"

2006-05-04T16:03:00.000-03:00

In relating, one to another, it is rare to attain relationships of depth. Some have no one in their lives who can speak into the deep places in their heart, psyche, fears, joys, etc. I have a lot of friends like these, and feel blessed for the glut of relationships I have in my life. But I know it isn't always easy to see into me. I am a somewhat reserved fellow who uses stories and well articulated thoughts and metaphors to generate the appearance of vulnerability. The thing about relating, one to another, is that it must be mutual. I have a lot of friends who can see into me, but only so many that I have taken the time and effort to look into them.

I guess that means that there is some selfishness left over in my way of doing friendship that is still self-seeking and concerned more with how I feel about things than I am about how those around me are doing.

If this is so, and if I recognize it, then there is no longer any excuse for carrying on this way. So what do I do to end this trend? Who are those people into whom I want to look? Whom is there in my life who needs a person like me to come along side them and actively seek out this level of relationship? I mean obviously one does not barge in to this type of thing, forcing relationship on one another. Instead there is an obviously connection, an attraction at a soul level, like two magnets, drawn together from the inside. Not like an attraction on a carnal level, like two dogs who want to sniff each other's butts, drawn only to sensual things.

Lately I have been noticing this type of concern, on my part, and on the part of my friends. Our relationships are beginning to go deeper than the surface, our conversations of greater and greater honesty and vulnerability. My friend Andrew and I, for example have recently found common ground in talking about the opposite sex, and have plumbed greater depths of ourselves by not limitting the conversation to the superficial, obvious things, instead hitting some of the deeper issues within ourselves. And that's only one example.

Another friend and I were discussing life, the universe, time, annointing, and I found within myself a deep concern for their state of being. I didn't know for sure, but I felt in my spirit maybe, that they were having a bit of a tough time continuing their upward ascent into the things of God.

I got this picture, and I sure hope they don't mind me sharing it here, of a deep sea diver rising from the ocean's floor toward the surface of the water. After rising a great distance the diver stopped at about 10 feet beneath the surface. I felt as though this was a moment in which the diver had to choose to keep looking up. To look down could be a distraction (gosh, I sure have come a long way) but all of that means nothing if the diver does not break the plane of the surface, persist for that last few feet.

I think this works in a Kingdom of God way, where it is no good to come most of the way, then become complacent, as in the Kingdom of God, one never runs out of new heights to attain to, if they keep their eyes upward. Imagine breaking the plane of the ocean, swimming in the natural all that way, reaching the surface, taking a deep breath of salt air, and then looking up into the clouds. Then the voice of God calls you higher still, saying, why not keep coming up? Come see what it's like on the other side of these clouds! Then you begin to rise even higher, even though it is imposisible on your own.

Maybe in a way the opposite metaphor is true, in that you must not stop at having your ankles covered, but must persist, even if the water feels cold, or the river is rushing a little faster than you are prepared for. Submerged, that's the place to be, all His. It's the place to be, and it's the thing to do. Even now, as I type I can hear Him calling me "Won't you be all mine? Come out a little deeper."

Mommy...What's a hiatus?

2006-05-02T01:47:00.000-03:00

So...without trying to, I have missed the entire month of April, as regards the Blogosphere. I didn't decide to forego writing, or anything, I simply never got around to it. As such, I would just like to welcome Spring, and May, and announce my intention to write again with a new vigour. So keep watching for more high quality blogging, coming soon!

Inveterate Lovers

2006-03-28T16:09:00.000-04:00

Not a new idea for me, but speaking about community has been resurging in my life over the last few days. I had a couple friends talk to me about their struggles, and they all boiled down to their attempts and failures at doing life by themselves. There are inherent weaknesses in our being that are only enflamed when we face them alone, and it has been my privelege to play a part in leading these people out of the place of solitude, and into a place of togetherness (thank you Joel Mason).

We are inveterate lovers, created by Love (the noun) in order to be bearers of the image of Love, and to love each other (the verb). When we try to do this by ourselves it falls flat. Love must go out, which could explain why we exist in the first place.

I moved back to Toronto a few months back when God showed me an image in my imagination of a central intersection of this city, crowded with people wearing dark sunglasses and speaking into cell-phones. I immediately took this to mean that the people were not interacting, trying not to be seen by each other, and not talking to each other, choosing instead to talk to someone farther away.

Recently God brought this picture back to me, only this time the people took off their sunglasses, and put down their cell-phones. Suddenly I became aware of a deeper truth in this, that the people wore their sunglasses to sheild themselves from letting God's light in, and spoke into cell-phones to avoid letting God's Spirit speak to them. Obviously a bit more metaphorical than I had first believed.

But again, in this second picture, months later than the first, the people were removing their glasses and cell-phones. I believe that the city is ripe, and that the people of Toronto are about to come into contact with the Love of their lives en masse. I don't know how it's going to happen, but it will be like the signal to the phones, the thing that was distracting them, hiding them, will become weaker. No longer will the technology and communications, and media, and lies, and crap be able to hold us in a stupor. And the sun will rise again in this city, and instead of the typical reaction of putting on sunglasses and sheilding ourselves, the people will marvel at this sunrise, and long to see it for what it truly is, and will remove the blinders that have covered there eyes.

I'll let you know how this plays out over the next few months (heck, years. I don't know).

God, I am so thankful that you created us, that you love us. Thank you that I bear your image. I will carry that image out into my city.

Peace.

Help the poor, even those who are unworthy...

2006-03-15T15:10:00.000-04:00

“He who has God and everything else, has no more than he who has God alone.”

I was reading a letter from Martin Luther to John of Saxony (I always feel a little bit guilty reading other people's mail). What I found was very interesting. Luther said that John should help the poor, even those who are unworthy. I don't know what point John had raised, that this is seemingly written to answer, but the response is interesting.

Perhaps it is only interesting because this same point has been raised recently in discussions with my friends Linda and Bethany. They both love the poor people in Toronto, and in conversation we discussed the issue of giving money directly to the poor people that we meet. One person mentioned that some of the time they seek the immediate comfort of drugs or alcohol, and to give them money could mean that you are just giving them the means to buy some dope.

I am alright with this. Kindness does not go unrewarded, advocating for the poor is always a good investment, and in my opinion, giving a bottle of booze to a homeless person is a mode of kindness. Proverbs 31:6-9 seems to agree with this, saying:

Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish; let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more. Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute, speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.

My friend Dan puts it this way(ish) saying that our first responsibility as followers of Christ is to give a man a fish. Next we must teach him how to fish, and finally, we must defend his right to fish.

I'm not sure what type of action this will mean for me, but I am glad that these thoughts keep returning to me. It would be antithetical to my faith to forget the needy, so I thank you God for your reminders.

Meetings....

2006-03-07T15:24:00.000-04:00

Meetings...

I love meetings.

Meetings are good.

When I look at the stars...

2006-02-27T16:03:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, when the sky is really clear, you can look up at the stars and it seems as though someone has pulled a canvas over the sky. And the canvas is all that is keeps us from looking directly into Heaven’s glory. The stars are little
holes in the canvas where Heaven peeks in at us, waiting for the canvas to be moved aside so the welcome party, the wedding reception can begin. Fortunately for us, the veil has already been torn, and the bridgroom is inside the canvas. And He is loving us even now, with open arms waiting to embrace us, holding us even when we don’t know it.

I wrote that during the School of Ministry in 1999, and a friend just reminded me of it. It is amazing to me, because since that time I have moved to the countryside, and then out of the countryside and back into the city. Cities are places of light, always brightly lit up, and the streetlights take the place of the stars. In the countryside the image of the stars makes so much more sense. There are just so many of them that the sky is an amazing display of the Grandeur of God. Cities, it would seem, are a display of the Grandeur of Man, who is made in the Image of God, the "Imago Dei", but in this case, I would have to say that I prefer the stars. But the reason that this strikes me so, enough to write about, is that it displays to me a sense of distance in my view of God. I had a real "here vs. there" sense of God, as though he is sometimes here (nearby) and sometimes there (distant).

Cantalamessa said that "Jesus draws near so we will love him, and also draws back so that we will long for him". This seems consistent with a loving relationship, that it displays both fulfillment and longing simultaneously, but I have seen an error in my way of seeing this patern.

Namely, I saw nearness as relationship, and drawing back as something else, testing maybe. If it is so, that even the drawing back is to the end of causing my heart to long for Jesus even more, then this is loving relational behavior. If this is a test, "will you still love me even if I am mean to you, and cold, and far-offish" then I can't imagine this a love. But there was a time when I could, and therein lies the issue.

I have had so many harsh examples of love in my life that by the time I was in the School of Ministry I had begun to accept that love was pain, and pain was love. My poem/thoughts about the stars were originally written slightly differently than they are posed here. Let me show you the original:

Sometimes when the sky is really clear, you can look
up at the stars and it looks like someone pulled a big
canvas over the sky, and that is all that is keeping
us from seeing God’s glory. The stars are just little
holes in the canvas where God peeks in at us, waiting
to move aside the canvas and smile down at us face to
face. Fortunately for us, the veil has already been
rent, and He is inside the canvas. And He is loving us
with open arms waiting to embrace us, hugging us even
when we don’t know it.

It is still an image of love, but do you see how it poses God as more distant? Now I have an easier time recognizing the nearness of God as love, and the appearance of some sort of distance between us as an illusion. Even if God has allowed me to feel as though he is distant, causing me to long for him, and love him even more, the truth is that he is still just as present with me as before, maybe even more so. He is invisible, so it stands to reason that it is difficult to "see" God at the best of times. But we experience him in other ways, through the bible, through feelings, through prayer, and I feel as though my error was in believing that during seasons in which these things were less accessible to me, that God was somehow further from me, that I had angered him somehow, and now he was in the other room fuming, unwilling to talk to me.

God is never absent from us. Look at what Job had to say "Look, I go forward, but He is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive Him...But He knows the way that I take; When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold." (from Job 23)

It's amazing love that I am talking about here. God is so faithfull to us, so in love with us, that even the times when we cannot perceive his presence in our lives, it is making us into gold. I tell you, God is amazing. I can't describe how perfect his ways are. Even when I can't see the way, 'He knows the way that I take'.

Thinking Deeply about Deep Thinking.

2006-02-15T22:24:00.000-04:00

Imagine that you suddenly went back ten minutes in time. Where would you be?

WRONG! Where ever you thought you would be, you are likely incorrect. Ten minutes ago the specific area that you are currently inhabiting was located in deep space. The Earth is moving incredibly fast, and ten minutes ago, this part of space where Earth currently finds itself passing through was just empty space. Think about it. You, like me, assumed that if you travelled back in time ten minutes, you would go back in SPACE also, to the spot you were located in ten minutes ago. Seems insignificant, but really, it denotes that we think we are the centre of the universe. I assume that if I travelled back in time, all of the created Universe would go back in time. It's interesting to me. I assume that I would remain the same, and the rest of the universe would be altered.

I mean, this is garbage thinking really, because this type of thing is entirely speculative, but it does reveal something of how we view ourselves. In this self absorbed way we feel like we are at the centre of everything, but we are not. The rest of the world stands apart from our unique perspective. I reject the idea that the chair beneath me ceases to exist as soon as I cannot sense it.

But in another way, we are the centre of our own universe. I was driving in my sweet Ford Taurus, and I asked Holy Spirit to be my best friend. Suddenly my mind was alight with incredible thoughts about things I had never thought of before. For example, the previous example about time travel. And I almost shut it down, as though it were frivolous. But then I felt God saying " You love thinking about this type of crazy stuff. Why do you assume that I won't speak with you about these things? I am your friend after all."

It was unbelievable. I began to imagine all sorts of conversations about things I don't necessarily know much about. I imagined how I would respond to someone posing an idea that I disagreed with, or that rubbed me the wrong way. Many people (myself included at times) will interupt people just to let them know "Actually, I disagree" which puts the speaker in the awkward position of either changing their opinion on the spot, or telling the person "Actually I don't much care what you think".

Why can't I just say "Wow, that's interesting. I have never heard anything like that before. Tell me more." And maybe a conversation would begin into which I could eventually insert my thoughts and opinions. If I am friends with someone, I feel I assume teleological suspension of disbelief, at least for long enough to see things through their eyes. If I haven't gone this far, or cannot, I probably shouldn't be so quick to shoot my opinion out there.

I will try this on for size in the next while, and see how it goes. A few months ago I decided to try behaving like a duck, and it was so excellent that I decided to keep that discipline. I will let you know how this turns out.

Ambition...grrr...

2006-02-14T14:18:00.000-04:00

Thoughts on personal ambition and humility. I mean, looking at this picture, I want to be that guy who aspires to climb the mountain, and who goes for it. But how much of that desire is good, and how much is unhealthy? It isn't easy finding balance, I suspect.

Let's hear what Dan Wilt had to say on the matter:

Personal Ambition
From Genesis 11 in The Message.

“Then they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower that reaches Heaven. Let’s make ourselves famous so we won’t be scattered here and there across the Earth.”

Just because a crowd does it, does not make something a worthwhile activity. Even in the modern sphere self-promotion and personal aggrandizement can run rampant. Our goal, in community and as individuals, is to further the fame of God. Sometimes He will elevate us to achieve that purpose, and other times he will humble us and hide us. Either way, keep your eyes, and the eyes of your team, focused on bringing Jesus acclaim in all you do.

A Prayer: Lord, I defer to You becoming greater through my life, and I welcome becoming less that I might elevate You.

Jonny Appleseed...Amen

2006-02-01T15:16:00.000-04:00

This is my first post ever from a Macintosh computer. Ry will be pleased if he ever reads this post.

I have been volunteering my time at a church in Toronto, and in order to maximize my efficiency, they have loaned me this fancy ibook computer. So far I have enjoyed it well enough, but I don't see what all the fuss is about. None of the "amazing streamlined features" have had much of an impact on my computing thus far.

Then again, I use my computer primarily as a word processor, and there haven't been a great deal of technological advancements made necessary in the field of word processing since the dawn of the computer age.

Anyhoo, just thought I would let folks know that I am alive and still blogging. This weekend I will try to come up with something of import to say on my blog, but for now the most exciting thing is the medium, not the message.

Valuing Generosity

2006-01-19T11:10:00.000-04:00

Received this from a good friend, and felt it was worth sharing. Tell me what you think of this, and how you think that you, or I could implement this in life.

Vineyard Canada Worship Leaders' Value Of The Month (January)

Live Generously
From Matthew 5:40-42 in The Message.

“If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, gift-wrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.”

Living generously is a costly enterprise. We are not always lauded or honored for the gifts that we give. Yet, we were optimally designed to be generous with our words, our gifts and that which we are stewards of in material goods. Generosity sets the human spirit free; both the spirit of the giver and the spirit of the recipient. When you are given to, give. When you are taken from, give. When you are with a stranger, give. When you are with your God, give.

A Prayer: Lord, teach me to give the precious gifts in worship, and to lead others to give the same.

Passing Mass

2006-01-03T23:37:00.000-04:00

I went to St. Pius X Catholic church the other day, and found it to be a very interesting place. An interesting blend of ancient traditions, and modern architecture (modern for the sixties when it was built, that is).

It is the only church I know of that literally has a door right out on to the main street. There isn't even a front step, I don't think.

Anyhoo, what with Christmas just passing and all, I thought I would say a word or two about the origins of celebrating the birth of Jesus on December 25th.

From all biblical interpretation, it is seen as HIGHLY unlikely that this is even close to the time of Jesus' birth. The shepherds were out in the fields, and I am told that it often snows in the winter time in and around bethlehem. Shepherds would not send their sheep out into the fields at night in winter. It's taught in Shepherding 101 people.

No, it was probably September or October.

The date of Dec. 25th was selected in the fifth century, by Rome, as the best time to celebrate Christmas because it corresponded to the winter solstice celebration. This was not intended to encourage the pagan traditions surrounding solstice, but to overshadow them, encouraging people to remember the state religion, Christianity.

Then there is the fact that it is called Christ's Mass. Yup, there is no doubt about it, we are all adopting a Catholic tradition, set at a pagan date when we celebrate Christmas in December.

Of course, as we all know, it is largely irrelevant these days to many people, except for Macy's, the Bay, and Sears, each of whom abandonned their previous years "Happy Holidays" slogan for the less P.C. "Merry Christmas". They found that business was up when they recognized Christmas, and down in years when they tried to appease the non- Catholic and Pagans.

See you soon with a legitimate post about something more "jacob-ish".

Ciao

Kingfishers that DON"T catch fire.

2005-12-17T12:58:00.000-04:00

Gerrard Manly Hopkins wrote a lovely poem called "As Kingfishers catch fire, dragon flies draw flame" in reference to the beautiful sights he saw on an evening, at sunset beside a pond.

Well, my sister and her man, Blayne have had a baby boy, as I reported earlier. His name has finally been decided, and it is Kingston Nathanial Fisher, or King Fisher for short.

Apparently Blayne has been dreaming that one up for decades.

I love my little nephew, he rocks. Today I am helping him move to Kincardine, Ont. where is is more likely that he would catch cold, than catch fire. I am told that it is a wonderfully snowy place. I suppose I shall see for myself soon enough.

Mucho Love-O,

More on Music (not Moron Music)

2005-12-12T18:53:00.000-04:00

So, to carry on a little from where I left off, and to address Matt's comment, I think that the untrained ear allows anything in, and has a greater capacity to enjoy more music.

Matt's comment made my point for me. Dude, you automatically brought it into classical music, which is a good place for this conversation to go.

Someone who is classically trained is not going to be able to sit idly by while someone beats the crap out of their guitar while it is badly out of tune. Instead, they will reach out and grab the tuner, and try to tune it up for the hapless player. Meanwhile, someone who doesn't know the difference between in and out of tune will smile appreciatively during, and cheer at the end of, the song.

The same principle works the other way. Play Madeski, Martin and Wood, or King Crimson, or Dream Theatre or something like that, for a person who listens to music with an untrained ear, and they will not likely take to it immediately. The trained ear is able to see the complexities of the music, and overlook the fact that in the end the music is not all that listenable.

Basically, if the music needs to be explained, it is too complex for the untrained ear. Or, if the listener is unable to explain the music, they are untrained, and the trained ear may not appreciate the music.

I think that is why POP music exists. People can enjoy pop with little to no effort. That is comforting at times when I want my music to be light and fluffy.

So that is my take on music. I believe that it is enjoyed as much, or more, by people who don't understand it, as it is by those who do. The music speaks to the soul, not the mind. And the fact that I now appreciate softer, more melodic music seems to suggest to me that I have a softer gentler soul?!? I suppose it does.
Rock on.

Oh my Sweet Carolina

2005-12-07T12:33:00.000-04:00

When I was a young lad living in Nova Scotia, I was brought up on Country Radio. At the age of seven I would have told you that Rita McNeil was my favorite. Then in school I discovered Micheal Jackson, and he became my favorite artist.

When I moved to Toronto I was introduced to so many options in music that I had never encountered before. There was MuchMusic, Q107, so many songs.

By the age of 13 Guns N Roses were my favorite, and that influenced my music choice for a long while. By 17 my entire music collection was metal and Alternative. I had about 60 CDs at that time, and I have long abandoned all of them. Well, actually all but two. Gandharvas and Made have survived in my music collection.

But like so many other phases of music appreciation, my love of heavy metal music did not last. Interestingly enough, my favorite style of music now (at 27 years old) is folk music. I have often wondered how I came to enjoy folk, which is antithetical to heavy metal.

Some of my favorites today are Patty Griffin, Ryan Adams, Martin Sexton, and folks like these who sing stories mostly. They do so with great skill and tremendous emotion, but ultimately the songs are stories. Bruce Springsteen does this sort of thing, in case you are unfamiliar with what I am talking about. Think about his song Glory Days. He is just singing about running into old friends and taking them out for a few drinks. He's singing a song that could be YOUR song, you know?

So here is a brief thesis about the transition of musical tastes in my life. I do not believe that it will translate perfectly into everyone's experience, as tastes vary from person to person. But here is what I think about my own personal journey of music.

In my early years, when I still lived in Nova Scotia, up till the age of 10 or so, life was imaginative, easy, and all around me was nature, fresh salt air, and discovery after discovery of interesting, but ultimately unimportant things (like a squirel in the back yard or something). In this time I liked music with light airy melodies, and not a lot of complexity, slowly transitioning into liking Micheal Jackson, who was Pop music at it's pinnacle. Again, unimportant lyrics, light ideas, with sweet Poppy melodies.

Then I moved to Toronto, and simultaneously began to grow into my adolescent years. Life became a bit louder, dirtier, more intense, more complex, angrier in a sense, and certainly darker. When I saw a music video for November Rain by Guns N Roses for the first time I knew that this was a style and message that spoke to me. I became a fan, and bought all their albums. I also began to listen to Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Alt.Rock station 102.1 The Edge.

My life in Toronto wasn't very good at first. I lived with my Mother, from whom I had grown estranged over the years of living apart from her. And I also lived with her new husband. Thinking about it now, I have a great deal of compassion for this man. He met a woman, loved her, married her, and then within months they had two children, 10 and 12 years old, to care for. This is not what he was expecting, and he certainly had no idea how to deal with it.

Accompanying the stress of moving into this situation, there was all of the natural stress and anxiety of becoming a teen-ager. I was from Nova Scotia, had no experience dealing with jerks in the classroom, and was much smarter than my class-mates. I didn't fit in too well. I made friends with the outcasts, and together we listened to dark, bitter music that fed our angst.

At this time I believed that I was fully developed as a person. I think that every teenager secretly believes this about themselves. They feel as though they have the world all sussed out, and that they way they perceive things will forever be the way they perceive them. So in evaluating my favorite bands at the time, I would have said that they would be my favorites forever. It's almost romantic, really.

But of course my tastes slowly did indeed begin to shift. I began playing guitar, and of course you can't just sit around at school playing your electric guitar, so I played accoustic guitar. This caused me to start reading Accoustic Guitar magazine, and garnered exposure to a lot of new artists I would never have heard of before. I picked up some Cat Stevens, James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel, and mixed it in with my metal collection.

Now my collection is mostly accoustic folk type stuff. Interestingly enough, this is most comparable to my original tastes in music as a child. I think that music, like life, is most enjoyed when appreciated with childlike wonder and innocence. Take the Opera for example. A woman singing in Italian (which I do not understand) can convey the beauty of music to the trained and untrained ear alike, but I think that the untrained ear allows the music to flow in and out of them, while the trained ear is listening carefully for the intricacies of the music. I think that the trained ear has the capacity to enjoy music more deeply, but the sphere of music that they will enjoy in this way may be lessened, as music that is not technically excellent might offend their musical palatte. The innocent childlike listener will enjoy whatever comes their way.

Wow, this is getting long. More to come at a later date.

See ya!

And There He Is!!!

2005-11-30T10:15:00.000-04:00

This is a picture of my new (and first) Nephew. He doesn't have a name yet.
My Sister, Crystel, and my Brother-in-law, Blayne, can't decide on a name so they need to wait until she is fully recovered and then they will arm wrestle for the naming rights.

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

2005-11-29T18:56:00.000-04:00

Hello friends and well wishers.

This Thursday marks the end of the 27th year of Jacob, which is a monumental occassion to be certain.

To celebrate, I am going to go to the Green Room Cafe, Sunday night at 9:00pm, after church. All are invited, whether you have hung out with me many times, like Mel, or if you are a blogging bud, like Ms. Erin Wilson(ian).

Directions are as follows:

From Bloor and Bathurst head East on Bloor, to Brunswick.
Turn right (south) on Brunswick, and then down the Alley toward the big sign with the Arrow that reads "Green Room" and the shin-dig will be in there.

I am not anticipating a big deal, simply some time to hang out with friends, and talk about old times, make some new times, and all around spend some times.

Hope to see you there!

My Sister's Water Broke!

2005-11-29T03:03:00.000-04:00

Yup, it looks like I will be an Uncle any time now. My sister, Chrystel, has been increasingly pregnant over these last nine and a half months, and my little nephew has finally decided to reveal himself to the world.

Likely there will be photos to follow.

Derivation of Meaning (i've been working construction and need to do some thinking to stay sane. Come along for the ride!)

2005-11-15T16:32:00.000-04:00

I sat at the table and reminisced. It was night, and I recalled the paper I wrote in University on Novalis' A Hymn to the Night, and the fictional story that embodied its principles, Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf.

It was a dark time for the intellect, as all of the major philosophies that were evolving in their respective time periods were fairly bleak. Novalis began writing at the turn of the 19th century, and Hesse at the turn of the 20th. Novalis was presented with the emergence of industry, faced a slow death at the hands of Tuburculosis, and was weaned into the world of thought on sour milk. But he saw hope. He saw the world, the visible, the tangible, the momentary, as elements of the day. Day, he believed, was finite, and would pass away, leading to an infinite night. Not a bleak, empty night, like Nietzsche's nihilo. No, the night Novalis wrote of contained meaning, activity, impulse, stimula. But all of the invisible sort. It was a night where the mind was free to follow any path it desired, to understand anything that it imagined fully, as though it was only just thought up for the first time. The meaning was entirely contained in the night, and none was found in the soul's journey into the night.

As I remembered encountering these thoughts for the first time, I can recall the sensation of gratitude (or maybe relief) that before I encountered Novalis I encountered Hesse.

Hermann Hesse's novel Steppenwolf embodied the characteristics of Novalis' night in a fictional person, Harry Haller. No, wait, that's wrong. Hesse's novel embodied something new. It showed how the meaning was not in the elements of the night alone, but that meaning was demonstrated in the journey INTO the night. This was a huge thought at the time, because while every other writer was saying that there was no meaning at all, Hesse was saying that this was not so. He asserted that the was inherent meaning to the individual's exixtence, and that the scope of that meaning could even be witnessed in the journey of pursuit TOWARD that meaning.

Today I sit at a table in the daytime, (literally and figuratively) and I know that all the decisions I make, energy I spend, conversations I have, people I influence, people I am influenced by, each have value, each have meaning. What's more, they help me encounter meaning along the way to finding meaning.

The journey. In as much as we are on the journey, and not yet at the destination, we find meaning here, along the way. If I had finally arrived at whatsoever destination toward which I am headed, then I would have acheived meaning, I would have attained by finality. But the very notion that i am 'along the way' to some great destination signifies that I do not yet know my ultimate meaning. Because I do not know my ultimate meaning, I am open to what changes and surprises may come my way. And there have been many.

When all else is stripped away, I believe that I come from God and am about the business of returning to God. The way has been made, and I am already one with him in Christ, and my life is the enactment, the appropriation of that One-ness. So as I am drawn nearer to meaning I am closer to that great end, the Omega.

As Boethius (or someone and now we attribute it to him) once said "Thou art the Journey, and the Journey's end."

A Warm Breeze Began to Blow

2005-11-04T22:37:00.000-04:00

Today I finished the painting that I have been doing for my Mom, and decided that I would head in to the City. Chicago is beautiful, and while my Mom lives downtown, I hadn't yet taken the time to stroll through the city. It was so warm that I wore no coat, and walked on the shady side of the street to avoid the heat. No jokes, it was 25 degrees Celsius, in November!

The one place that I wanted to see was the Art Gallery, and I have done just that. I had been there once before, so I knew the major attractions, but since then I have been to the major galleries of Europe, and have been instructed in the art of looking at art.

My most interesting moment today happened in the impressionist room, with some cezanne, Monet, Seurat, and Picasso. I was on a seat looking at a cezanne, and it was quietly blowing my mind. Here it is:

The apples are a mess, the wine is uncorked, the clothe is askew, and the table is obviosuly two tables pushed together (follow the line at the back of the table and you will see that the left and right are at different heights, and the table clothe has a crease, which makes one of the apples impossible).

I loved the painting and studied it for about fifteen minutes, before a girl's cell phone wrang. She sat down next to me and spoke for a short time on her cellphone before hanging up. Then she looked right at me and asked "Okay man, what's so hot about this one? You've been sitting here for ever."

I told her what I liked about it, and she seemed really interested. She called some friends over, and made me tell them. Then she took me over to the Monets and asked me why they were masterpieces. It turns out her name is Monet, and her mother had named her after the artist. I explained impressionalism to her and her friends. I showed them about five paintings in all and taught them how to read a painting. It was exhilirating. I think I will do it again right now. Let's do "the Old Guitarist".

He's very old, wiry, his skin is really tight, and he's obviously underfed. His clothing is tattered, and his feet are unshod. There is no cup or hat or anything to collect money, he is not begging or performing for money. His circumstances look very bleak, and yet the music goes on. He is an artist and he must continue playing.

Picasso is an artist with no patron regularly paying him for his work. I think that this work is his way of saying that the artist values the craft above all other things. Very invocative.

So in all I have had a very nice time in Chicago. I did a lot of work, lots of painting, lots of furniture assembly, and lots of time to think about things, pray, soul-search. Nothing like hard work to rejuvenate one's joie de vivre.

Like Water off A Duck's Back

2005-11-03T15:09:00.000-04:00

It was Sunday afternoon, and my friend Noel and I were sitting in a rental van (don't ask) in the parking lot of an American Outlet Mall (really, don't ask). It came to pass that we began to talk about the previous weekend, and one particular incident when my driving skills were brought into question. I disliked the experience, but it brought to light a deeper issue concerning being in the wrong.

This led me to wonder why I feel so strongly (consciously or subconsciously) as though I must always be right. Because it is clear to me that I do feel as though I must be right all the time. Am I the only one? Do any of you suffer from this stigma?

I have taken some time to think about it, and realize that many people behave in this way to a certain extent. Everyone I know defends their position in one way or another. I take it to another level. I sometimes fight for my position in such a way that I am not really satisfied until I know that everyone present has seen my perspective, and then, if they still disagree with me then so be it. But I do feel as though I must be heard, or else I become somewhat melancholy.

I have seen this behaviour before, in my dad. He once nearly came to blows with me over the suggestion that the Toronto Maple Leafs were one of the original six hockey teams. He was drunk at the time, and wouldn't hear otherwise. He maintained that they were not, and I knew that they were. Any attepmt to placate him on the matter was met with hostility, and he NEEDED to hear that I agreed with him before it could be resolved.

Why do I bring this up? Well, the fact is that early in life I discovered that sometimes, with some people, there was no such thing as right. I was always in the wrong, and must always be in the wrong. Any suggestion on my part that I was right and the other person was wrong would result in some sort of confrontation. Somehow I think that the lasting effect of this is that any time my perception of right is brought into question I automatically assume that I need to defend myself. Most of the time, particularly over the weekend, this is not the case. I know Noel and know that she and the other person who was poking fun at my driving were not trying to provoke me. I don't need to defend myself against them. They love me and feel at liberty to press me on issues like these. I am thankful for these type of friends.

Anyhow, enough childhood pain. Chicago is a lovely city, and having work to do gives me time to think about things. Funny that. So the more I think about this, and ask God about it, the more I learn and the more I grow. I think I will practice being comfortable with not knowing things. I am going to spend the next few weeks letting things slide off my back like water off a duck, not taking offense, not grasping at things that I should just let pass. Somehow I think that in doing so I will be better off. We'll see.

Ta Ta For Now

Flirting with Emptiness

2005-11-01T17:12:00.000-04:00

Hello friends and loved ones. My good friend Andrew pointed me back to a post I wrote a few months ago on community. I am glad that he did.

As I was reading it over I realized that in the craziness of moving my life back (or forward rather) to Toronto I had left a place where I was very comfortable, and had worked my way into a place of real community with the folks around me in St. Stephen.

In Toronto things are very different, which is to say that the mode of life for most people is very different. I looked at all the different views people held there, and I set out to do my darndest to change it. If you look at the four stages of community, this most closely resembles the second stage, known as chaotic community.

In my former environs I had done away with most ideas I had of “fixing” everyone, and was able to accept them and myself. In Toronto I have had a hard time accepting the way others see things, and this has deeply affected the way I see myself.

So for the last little while I have been flirting with “emptiness” as it were. Remember, emptiness is a necessary stepping stone into real community. And that is a good thing.

For all of my friends in Toronto who are reading this, be patient with me. I am growing again, and while there are some growing pains involved, there are also many blessings that I can see quite clearly. I am surrounded by people who genuinely care about my well being. I am in a stage of life where the roof has been lifted off the greenhouse, and I am able to reach for yet a higher place than I have yet known. I think this is the “mountaintop to mountaintop” life I have prayed for many times.

And for my dear friends who are not in Toronto, I have not forgotten the many lessons you have taught me about living together in community. Even as I type, beer placed neatly beside the laptop, and there is a smile on my face, because God is good.

Beautiful Sun

2005-10-26T11:00:00.000-03:00

Last night I had a lovely chat with my good friend and fellow Reluvnotionary, Micheal Sumner. We talked about how we both had enough time on our hands these days to become very stressed. Sounds funny doesn't it? But seriously, when you have a lot of free time, and no activities that define your purpose, you have to trust that you are valued and loved based on who you are, not what you do.

As I drove home after our conversation (it was an hour's drive) I began to inquire of God what exactly this season in my life was all about. The reply was very interesting. I sat in the driver's seat of my car and was flooded with the notion that this phase was God's idea, and that it is the best thing for me right now. He seemed to be promising me that in the end I will have engendered a much better sense of my Sonship. In other words, I will find my identity in being God's son, not in the things that I do with my time.

I had my iPod playing and at this point a Delirious? song came on, and the lyrics were "You are the Sun, Beautiful Sun." But of course I heard "You are the Son, Beautiful Son". It was particularly poignant for that instant in time. My eyes maybe even got a little moist.

I think God is very very smart, and knows what is best for me. If I find my identity, if I assign value to my life based on my successes and failures, then I have a very small spectrum for viewing myself. But if I can understand that my existence is justified by the fact that God says I am his son, then the sky is the limit.

YYYYYYEEEEESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!

2005-10-20T17:35:00.000-03:00

Oh Baby. I have a new computer. I followed in my good buddy Jeremy's footsteps and bought an ACER Aspire 3000, which means that I can get back into the swing of updating my various blogs.

So we will start here. I am living in Toronto again, and have been for just over a week. I have seen and visitted with many of my good friends from the City, and have enjoyed that.

I am enjoying my new environs, but I am also already feeling the grind of a new place, new ideas, new pressures, and new freedoms. For example, I need to relax. I am so fond of doing doing doing, and now have come to think that what I really need to do is rest, to chill out for a while and just be. I think that I have taken refuge in my many activities, skills, loves, and passions. Doing the stuff took the place of being myself. So I am hoping to re-learn how to just be.

And for that matter, I am now in a setting where there is SO much more to do that it becomes a little more challenging to leave time for being still, for contemplative prayer, for chilling, as they say.

So we will see if the country boy turned city man has what it takes to be real, to be himself in the bright lights of the big smoke. Can the river that spoke "peace" in St. Stephen keep speaking to me here? I think it can. I think it will.

Where things are "Head"ing

2005-10-07T15:11:00.000-03:00

Today I am about to go get a haircut. It will be my first proper haircut in over two years. I spent about a year as a baldy, shaving my head with an electric razor every two weeks or so. Then I let my hair grow without even a trim for a year (less a week). Then I shaved it off again, and now it is just long enough to need a pruning at the sides. So I am off to get a trim. How exciting.

Satisfied (So Sweet)

2005-10-05T17:02:00.000-03:00

"I've made mistakes today,
But I appear to be smiling wide.
No worries about tomorrow,
'Cause I'm satisfied."

These are lyrics from my friend Ry's song "So Sweet". I was speaking to a dear friend and was explaining a bizarre (but welcome) sensation of peace and satisfaction as I was driving down the highway. I was certain that it was in conjunction with a song I was listening to, but I couldn't remember which one it was.
Well, there it is. Turns out he wrote it about a girl. Maybe I will try my hand at that.

I have been experiencing a lot of stress lately, and I haven't dealt with it as well as I could have, but somewhere in all of the craziness of moving, packing, saying goodbye, there is peace. I have no worries about tomorrow, because I am satisfied today.

Six more sleeps until Ottawa, seven more until Toronto.

Two weeks to the Day.

2005-09-27T13:28:00.000-03:00

Two weeks from today I will load my stuff into my car and head West. I am looking forward to it. A lot of things have to happen in the next two weeks.

I have to go to Nova Scotia to see my family there. It's been awhile, and since I am leaving the Maritimes, it might be awhile again. So that is a must.
I have to go fishing. The season is practically over, but there is no salt-water fishing in Southern Ontario.

I have to drink coffee with about 15 different people, and take the time to say goodbye to each of them individually.
I need to move out of my apartment, and onto a friend's couch, by this Friday. Oh man it's getting crazy now.

Please, friends, pray for me. I am facing a tough fourteen days.
Soon it will all change, and I can get back to blogging about interesting things again.

A new venture begins!

2005-09-22T17:00:00.000-03:00

My super good friend Jeremy has started a network of blogs and bloggers, and has invited me to be a part of it. I said "Yes Please".

I write for three more blogs, one on Literature, one on Movies, and one on Sports. I am greatly enjoying it, as every morning I awake and know that I get to sit and think, and write, and that in some way it is helpful to me and a great deal of others who have invested time and money into making this thing work.

The links are on the side bar, and I recommend that you check them out.

The B5 Media link has more links to all the blogs on the network, so you can see if any are interesting to you.

Check 'em out, and tell me what you think.

A Bit Ambitious

2005-09-18T20:43:00.000-03:00

I have decided in my heart that I will be moving back to Toronto. I have acknowledged with my mouth, to many friends and colleagues, both in St. Stephen and in Ontario, that I am moving. I am trying to make the best of my last month in St. Stephen, but I think that my decision to stay for a whole month was a BIT ambitious.

I am trusting God, and believe that he is in charge here, guiding my decisions. But it seems that sometimes when God is guiding your steps they lead you through some challenging places.

The thing is, I could have said all of my goodbyes in a week, and kinda did. But now I have three more weeks and I don't know what to do with myself. It's not really bad, like the people here are suddenly against me. These are my very close friends. They've been my family for the past two years. I would take a bullet for some of these folks, and I know they would do the same for me.

So I have time. Time to hang out, and I intend to make the best of it. But overshadowing the hanging out is the knowledge that our time for doing so is short. That's the hard part I suppose. I guess I wasn't prepared for how difficult it would be to say goodbye to these guys.

Jer, Shannon, Evan and Alex, Holli, Zoe, Dan, Pete, Walt, Eric, Isaac, Steph, Larissa, Zach, Chrissy. So many friends who have been so important to me, who I have been priveleged to be nearby in community.

And then I think of my friends in T.O. who I have to wait three more weeks before I see once again, and begin to commune with them for the first time in awhile, like Steve, Tom, Kev, Michael, Mike, Dunc, Andrew, Mel, Bee, Beth, Jon and Maija, and a few new friends too like Noel, who I barely know, but hope to know better.

In some ways it's like enjoying the last slice of a very very tasty cake, knowing that it's the last piece, and somewhere inside I don't want to eat that last bite. All the while knowing that there is another, very different type of cake in the fridge for the next celebration.

Okay, that analogy was super weak. I'm tempted to delete it, but I'm leaving it so that you can see that I am really thrown off my game here.

Know this! I care a great deal about the people here, and am sad to leave them. Simultaneously I care a great deal about the folks in my future home, and can't wait to see them. So I am strongly tempted to rush things, and am fighting fighting fighting to keep at the original game plan. I decided what to do when I was not experiencing these pressures, somewhat freer from stresses to leave now. So that's what I will do.

The More Things Change

2005-09-13T16:31:00.000-03:00

An extremely pessimistic 16 year old Jacob would have told you that the only constant in the world is change. What I find interesting is that I assumed that the way I felt about change would never change. But it has.

I have been moving around alot in my lifetime. I moved to Toronto at age 11, then back to the Maritimes to attend University at age 20, then back to Toronto at 23, then back to the Maritimes at 24. Now I am 26 and I will be moving back to Toronto again.

In some ways this can mess a guy up. The constant uprooting has been hard on the part of me that desires to have deep roots. But in the last two years of living in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, God has given me some amazing mentors and friends who have encouraged me to let my roots grow.

So now I have some roots, it's time to leave the greenhouse and get planted. That means even more change. I am going to move back to Toronto, and if all goes well I will be able to put these roots down there. I love the city, and love the people in it very much. I marvelled as I stood on Yonge street and watched people walking to and fro. They mostly had sunglasses on, and many spoke into cell-phones. They seemed to be embracing two very old ideas:

"No man is an Island unto himself"- John Donne
"The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation"-Henry David Thorough

As people stood at an intersection on the sidewalk, literally inches from another person, they tried desperately to seperate themselves from each other, as though they could actually exist as islands unto themselves, if they tried really hard. But as a result they found themselves in a state of quiet desperation, trying not to let each other know about their problems.

Here's why this is relevant. I have been living in a place where the key strength in the character of the people who live here is that they love and help each other in anyway that they can. As a result of this tendency toward love, there is an increased sense of safety and security in being vulnerable about areas of weakness (desperation).

It seems that the one thing the people in Toronto need (in my own limitted view) is the one thing that I have been learning how to do, which is connect with others, live in community with each other, and be genuine about things that are lacking.

Think about it: On a mountain expedition to the top of Everest, one of the climbers breaks his toe. As a result he/she cannot walk propperly, and a bit of a limp develops. Not wanting to say anything about the awkward appearance of the limp, the other climbers remain silent. Eventually the injured climber stubbornly collapses and falls off the mountain, along with whatever key supplies were in their pack. The whole team suffers because no-one, injured or otherwise, spoke up about the situation and maybe offered to help.

We have things to offer each other that no one knows about. No one knows about the help I can offer because I don't want to risk offending someone by offering the help in the first place, and they surely don't want to ask.

At SSU I have learned how to ask for help when I need it, offer help when it is needed, and seek out community with others so that I may know what strengths and weaknesses are present in my sphere of influence. I look forward to putting this to practice with some of my friends in Toronto, some of whom I know, and others whom I have yet to meet. You may be one of them, who knows!

The fine art of shadow casting

2005-09-07T10:35:00.000-03:00

Today I write from a cafe in Toronto, where the wireless internet flows fast and free. I have been in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) for a little over a week now, and have a few more days to go before returning to St. Stephen. It has been a very amazing time here, and the full implications of that amazingness have not yet been revealed to me.

In my Southern Ontario swing thus far I have renewed my friendship with some old friends, made new friends, and continued enjoying the company of those with whom I had not ceased to be friends.

Also along the way I attended a Youth Summer Camp, as a Counsellor. That was a tremendous experience to say the least. I saw some kids who had no reason in their hearts to believe that God was real, or that he loved them, become completely transformed by the week's end. Today they have gone back to high school and have had to come to grips with the fact that God is real, loves them very much, and also loves their friends and family very much (who may have a hard time accepting the new world-view that has been adopted).

So in my last post I commented on how my life was linked to a particular tree in my Grandfather's yard. Well, to carry on the metaphor just a little longer, the tree is pretty much stationary, but as the sun moves across the sky the shadow moves along the ground, first very long to the west, then shorter, shorter still, then very long to the east, then it ceases to exist as the sun sets and all shadows become one.

Then at the prescribed time, decided by the earth's axis, and speed of rotation, the sun rises again, causing the tree to cast a long shadow to the west.
I think the metaphor is limitted in that I often choose where and when I cast a shadow on people and places in this life. But I cast no shadow whatsoever without the sun shining in the sky. And as we know, the sun shines on the wicked and the just alike, so I make no claims as though I cast a shadow and others do not. We all do.

But there is a secret that I am learning, and that is the fine art of shadow casting. Maneouvering one's body and limbs in just the right way, at just the right time, one can cast a shadow of a shape, or symbol, or figure that could mean something to someone. In my time back in Toronto I have learned that I have cast many an interesting shadow here, and that people remember the shapes I have made.

It's humbling, but it's also amazing.
What kind of shadow are you casting? Are you providing shade for those who have been worn out by life? Or are you blocking out the sun for those who desperately seek its rays?

New horizons 2.0 (tale of the tree)

2005-08-19T10:25:00.000-03:00

A little under a year ago I wrote my first post, entitled "New Horizons". I was starting a new job, and a new era in my life, and blogging came along at just the right time to start documenting how that all worked out in my life.

This post marks yet another new era. Twenty-six summers have come along in my lifetime. Twenty-six years of slow change and inch by inch, branch by branch the tree grows. When I was four years old my grandfather planted a spruce tree in my yard and declared that it was MY tree. My sister has one, and each of my cousins. Every grandchild of his has a tree. For a time I was taller than my tree, but not any more. It looms over me now, despite the fact that I nearly killed it with a ride-on mower years ago. It recovered, and never complained.

I think that the tree speaks to me now. In the beginning the world existed to serve me. When I was hungry, it provided food. When I was tired, the sun conveniently set making a cool, quiet, dimly lit place for me to rest. I was bigger than the tree, and I was the centre of my own world. I was bigger than my tree. Today things are a bit different. I am growing up as a man, learning, existing, and my world is what it is, and I am in it. But the tree has grown much more than the man.

By this I mean to say that today I am much larger than the sum of my parts. My impact in the world is much greater than I know. I am no longer larger than my tree, but my tree is larger than me. In some ways it is humbling to know that my world does not exist to serve me, as though I were the greater, it the lesser, but that I actually have something to offer, and from a position where I am NOT the centre of it all.

When Jesus likened the kingdom of God to a seed, he referred to how eventually it becomes a large plant, and the birds of the air come and rest in it's branches.
I would like to be known as a guy who brings rest to people. Not that I would PUT people to rest, but rather that when they need a break, or some friendship, or anything of the like, that I might be like that tree.

And I think that everyone has this capacity in some ways. My friend Dan is amazing at engendering excitement about things. I once came to Dan and complained about my job and he had numerous suggestions about how to make it more interesting. My friend Pete offers great advice about how to learn more about something. I once came to him asking about a theological issue, and he led me to three books I could read if I wanted to know more. He later confessed that he was just being lazy, and didn't want to think about it himself at that time.

So my tree grows taller and taller, even when I am not around to watch it. And in theory, birds flock to it when they want somewhere to land. If I went to my grandfather's house today, I would see that tree, and would likely be surprised at how big it was. Unlike people, trees continue to grow taller, and to grow more branches, for their entire lives.

So while I may not grow any taller for the rest of my days, my tree, planted in my grandfather's yard, will continue to reach up, up, up.

I'm afraid of Americans...

2005-08-09T09:47:00.000-03:00

I'm not really afraid of Americans, in general, but I met some scary ones this last week.
I was attending the Soulfest five day summer festival in New Hampshire, and met these two fellows training to be in the Airforce, waiting to be called up to active duty. One of them has been training to fly fighters, and can't believe his luck. More and more pilots are refusing to fly fighters in Iraq, so this fellow's chances of being selected are very good.

This guy is a Christian, and he explained his philosophy to me. Basically, you train and train for something, and then when the time comes, you want to be "in the game". So as other pilots are quitting because they don't want attack crowded cities, this one fellow "can't wait to go drop bombs".

This is how he said it. "I can't wait to go over there and drop bombs." I asked him why he didn't mind breaking one of God's commandments not to kill, and he said that he has been trained to follow orders, and that he "lets the thinkers do the thinking". Very stirring.

I found during my numerous conversations with this one pilot that he wasn't willing to discuss issues. If we talked about free will vs. predetirmination, he would quote a scripture verse, and that was that. No thinking, no discussion.

"What do you think about the afterlife?"

"Matthew 25." No thoughts of his own on the matter. No intrigue, no sense of wonder at the mysteries that seem to be sown into the scriptures.
"It says it will be like this, so that's how it will be."

I suppose it re-enforced the fact that I love to think about things, and talk about them, even if I don't have them figured out. I love the mystery, and was stunned to meet someone who shuns mystery. It was as though he knew there were deeper things in life, and found them to be harmful, choosing instead to settle for the pat answer. This verse tells us this, end of story. Drop the bombs on these buildings.

Is this typical of American Soldiers, I don't know. Maybe it's actually typical in all walks of life, everywhere. I don't know that either. Thoughts?

Final stanza of the prologue...

2005-07-26T15:08:00.000-03:00

Read my last two posts if you want the background for this one.

Then the thursday arrived when Kate and I would be meeting to discuss our thoughts. I had come to realize that all of the issues present were hers. If she didn't want someone pursuing her, but thought for sure that I was doing so, that's her issue. If she doesn't want to disrupt her relationship with her boyfriend, but feels as though friendship with me did so, that's her issue.

So I was all set to meet up, talk, try my best to set her mind at ease about my position, and let her know that I was (am) willing to be her friend, no-strings-attached.

I phoned her during the day and told her I had a soccer game at 7:15, and it would end sometime after 9:00. I played soccer, got whooped 5-1, went home, called her and there was no answer. Had a quick shower and called again and her sister answered saying that Kate had gone for a drive and she didn't know when she would be in.

Thursday night was the best possible night to meet because it gave both of us time to think before Friday, when Kate went away for a week. So now I haven't had a chance to say my piece, feel a bit stood up, but for all I know she feels stood up too. Very strange, and yet somehow exciting.

I don't intend for romance with this girl, but in the strictest sense of the word, I find myself pursuing her. Somewhere in all of this is a sentiment that says "I just want things to be right, and don't know how to do that."

No doubt some of you will think I need to step back from this obviously manipulative woman. Others may think "finally someone Jacob doesn't understand right off the bat". All in all, I am glad simply to know that there is a community of friends who i can talk to about the strange and oft times frustrating things I think and do.

So, thanks for tuning it to my saga. Hopefully this is just the prologue to a beautiful story.

And the Plot Thickens

2005-07-25T09:58:00.000-03:00

For background, read my previous post.

She chuckled a little bit when I suggested that I was irresistable to women. This caused my synapses to start firing. She's laughing because that's a ridiculous statement...or maybe it makes her nervous because I AM irresistable to her, and I have just made things more awkward.

"Well, I just don't know if there is such a thing as 'just friends' between a man and a woman," says Kate. "I think that eventually in any relationship like that you will eventually have to face the idea that one or both parties will be attracted to each other. So I thought I had better just say right up front that I don't want to be pursued."

"This is pretty weird, Kate. No one has ever talked to me like this before.”
Says I.

“I have never done this before either, it’s just that think we could be good friends, and I don’t want to leave anything to get in the way of that.”

“I see, so you’re saying, ‘If we just do things the way we always do things, we get the same result’, and this time you want a different result. You want to set things up in such a way that there can be honest and open communication between two friends, without things getting in the way that typically get in the way?”

and at this point I made the mistake of thinking I knew what she was talking about.

“I think what I mean is what I said. I want to be your friend, but I can see how a girl asking you for coffee could be misunderstood, and so I want to be transparent here.” She’s not smiling anymore, and so once again I try to lighten the mood.

“Well, this could go a few ways. We could be friends for a little while, then realize that neither one of us could live without the other, get married, and your boyfriend would be crushed. OR we could be great friends for our whole entire lives, without romance ever entering the picture. OR we could try friends out, hate it, and it will all amount to nothing” I say in a somewhat light-hearted way.

“Or we could not even try friends out, and just go our separate ways right now,” she adds. “Which one of those do you think is the right way?”

At this point in the conversation I realized that I had been seriously underestimating the importance of the subject to Kate. It is possible that she has never been able to have male friends, and didn’t know if she could, so I was potentially a big gamble for her.

“Kate, I think you are a fantastic person, and I don’t want to presume to know every potentiality for where a friendship between you and I could lead. Can you accept the fact that there are variables that cannot be controlled?”

“I don’t know. Do you want to take some time to think about it, and then get together again later on and talk about it some more?” she asks.

“Sure. How about Thursday, after my soccer game?”

…more to follow on the continuing saga of Jacob’s friendship with Kate.

So there's this girl...

2005-07-22T15:05:00.000-03:00

who I used to know, whose name we shall designate as Kate, although that is not her name. I ran into Kate at a soccer game two weeks ago, and with some excitement, I might add. She was also excited at having re-encountered an old friend, and suggested coffee. I am never one to refuse a cup of coffee, so we exchanged numbers.

Later that week we set up a time and a place for coffe, but she called and had to cancel. She called back a few days later and we set up another time, which worked out and we met up.

Conversation flowed freely, ideas were shared, and we even discussed some theological issues that we both had been thinking about. I am an intellectually inclined person. I love ideas, and thoughts, and connections, and theories, so this was an amazing talk in my opinion.

After about two hours she looks me square in the eyes and says "Jacob I think it's important to make it clear that I just want friendship from you. I have a boyfriend and I am committed in my relationship with him. I think there's a possibility for a great friendship between you and I, but I don't want to be pursued."

I was pretty stunned by the shift in conversation, but I also found it really interesting. I immediately went into congecture overdrive, wondering at a million thoughts a minute exactly what caused her to bring that up.

"Kate," says I. "I know I am irresistable to women and that you may very well be in love with me by this point in the evening, but I want to know something. If you think that a relationship between the two of us is likely, but want to remain with your boyfriend, then what are you doing here? Or if you don't think that a relationship is likely, why did you think it so important to bring that up?"

I will write more on how the story is unfolding in a few days, but I think this is a good place to leave off for now.

A new Enterprise

2005-07-11T16:20:00.000-03:00

I am starting up a blogging film review, with reviews and discussion on new cinematic releases, new rental releases, and a section on older, more obscure films.

If you would like to help get it started check out the links on the right, and e-mail me any reviews you would like to put up.

Hopefully in time we can build a pretty good selection of reviews that will make for an interesting read. Imagine knowing with the click of the mouse exactly what Jon Puddle thought of Forest Gump, or how Sgt. Steve felt about "A Very Long Engagement".

Right now I have two new releases, and one rental review. I need more to make this worthwhile, and thought that people may want to express their own opinions in more substantial ways than comments allow.

Let the good times roll

Orange was the color of her dress

2005-07-07T12:31:00.000-03:00

Had a funny dream last night. I was in a coffee shop in Mozambique named "Orange was the color of her Dress". It's a real place, and I have been there. It's in a small village named Villancoulis that only exists because it is a port for the Paradise Islands off the coast. There is a six star resort (a five star with its own airport) on the island, and the village on the mainland needs to have a few kitschy places for rich people to hang out while they wait for a boat.

Anyway, so I was there, with an old friend named Amanda who was at one time the spring in my step, the apple of my eye, the...well you know what I am saying. And she was wearing an orange dress that she once wore when she accompanied me to a friend's wedding. It was all very surreal. Juxtaposing in my dream, a place I once visitted, and an old flame with whom I have lost touch. I don't know what to make of it. I can't recollect any of the dialogue from the dream, but I know that we just sat and drank coffee in this shop in Africa.

If you have a serious, heartfelt interpretation of this dream I am open to it. Or if you are Steve, I guess you can leave a shallow joke ;)

A new class of thinkers and dreamers

2005-06-27T16:07:00.000-03:00

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

-- William Butler Yeats, January 1919

This poem is an indictment against trends of thought that were just beginning at this point in history, as Humanity watched the Great War destroy their sense of supremacy over everything. People had started to believe that the human mind was all-powerful in its ability to reason and solve any problem we may have. The first stanza refers to how far out our reason has gone, in a vortex, like a falcon in an ever widening circle, until we are so far from the middle that we cannot hear the voice of the falconer, until we cannot find our center.

And his warning that the center cannot hold is a warning that as the great thinkers go further and further out, those more common people who tend towards the center will suffer the most for it. In the final line Yeats seems to hearken back to the idea that things may get pretty bad, and then when we really need saving, we will in fact be saved.

This post isn't really about this poem, as much as it is about the center, modern life as affected (or not affected) by post-modern thought, and what I am seeing as a post-post-modern in a modern town.

This past weekend I had the privilege of attending two graduation ceremonies in my area. One was for the graduating students of St. Stephen High School, and the other for the graduates of Sir James Dunn Academy in St. Andrews, a neighboring town.
I attended secondary school in Toronto, which is a very post-modern, secular, tolerant, multi-cultural city. But in some ways (that I only discovered this weekend) the small towns I live in and around kick Toronto's butt.

To begin with, the towns host a week of events for graduates, really boosting the morale of the students, and filling them with a sense of accomplishment. The whole town comes out to a reception prior to their prom, where the kids are all dressed up and all the local folk ooh and ahh at the dresses and suits. Then there is a Baccalaureate service (that's a CHURCH service) that nearly all of the grads attend.

At the grad ceremonies there is always an Anglican minister present who begins the ceremony with prayer, and I was stunned as the whole auditorium bowed their heads and donned pious expressions. The prayer ended in "and we ask this in the name of Jesus who is the Christ". I tell you I was floored. This kind of thing is strictly forbidden in Canada. Nationwide there is a by-law banning prayer from any type of platform in schools, but here it was, an integral part of the most important event of the school year.

In Sir James Dunn Academy there were only 35 graduates, due to the small size of the town it is in. These students had been at this school since grade 6, and every one of them was a personal success story for the teachers. 100% of the students at this school graduate, and they have such a strong relationship with their teachers that most of the grads received a hug from one teacher or another at some point. Again, this is forbidden in our schools, but here it was fine. You might think these schools just let these things slip in and don't tell anyone, but the minister of Education was present at each of these ceremonies, and he sure didn't seem to mind.

The last thing that I found really remarkable was the chit-chat during the ceremonies. Old ladies would remark "oh doesn't she look just like her mother!" or "glad that one turned himself around at the end." There is a strong connectedness in the place I live now. And history. Each person holds some sort of place in the bigger story that is going on around them. They are their parents kids, and their legacy is intertwined with everyone else's.

It is a post-post-modern world, where most people are doing their best to cling to their own chunk of stability with the secret knowledge that the centre of it all cannot hold. But somehow there are still those who cling to what few things were really great about modernity. Namely relational community, faith in the ability of "a higher power" to keep this all together, and in the story we are telling with our lives.

When asked how this world, and how our human story is going to pan out, how this is all going to end, I think the answer is simple. Jesus is going to return to save us. I observe trends in history, philosophy, culture, and religion, and I don't see the world vastly improving itself as people believed it was in the scientific revolution. I see that we desperately need saving, and the good news is that the God who made us, and loves us, happens to be in the saving business.

Travel log, star date 6-17

2005-06-17T13:53:00.000-03:00

I have been to England and back, and would like at this time to address my most recent vacation.

I had a really great time in the U.K.. I travelled around England and Wales more than I had expected, and the travel expenses added up, but I'll get through. Along the way there were many fine adventures, and I will pin-point a few of them here.

Early in the trip Mark and I, and a few others, travelled to Cardiff, Wales, to watch a football match. The Sheffield Wednesday were playing in their biggest match in over a decade as they played for a chance to be promoted up to the championship league. If you don't have a good understanding of English football then I would liken it to this: Imagine if a triple-A Baseball team won their league championship, and was then bumped up to the Major leagues.

Three football clubs at the top of their league go up, and the three worst go down. Sheffield had once been a top team, but had been relegated down two leagues in the last few years. This game was a game to decide who would go up, so it was a big deal.
Sheffield won the match in an exciting fashion, taking the lead, losing the lead, trailing, tying it up late, and winning in extra time. Very moving, very dramatic. Many men were weeping with joy.

After Wales, Mark and I went to London where we attended a Patty Griffin concert, then had a day to roam the city. The concert was fabulous, and her voice is incredible. Incredible!!! Then on the day off we went to two free (but very impressive) national art galleries where we saw some Van Gogh, Cezanne, Warhol, Picasso. It was really great. Then we drank Moosehead at a Canadian Pub for $8.00 a bottle.

Spent some quality time in Leeds, re-emersing myself in British culture, checking out some gigs, playing at a gig as the opening act, and attending Mark's church which is on the cusp of doing something really awesome with the people of Leeds. It started a few years ago as a New Frontiers plant with a handful of people meeting in whatever venue they could rent. Now it has just purchased a building and has a few hundred members. It's on the grow, and God is actively present in their meetings. They have a pretty neat prophetic gifting where people get scripture verses, bring them forward and read them, and they have tended to be link in interesting ways.

I also went to Holy Island, which is a small island in the North of England where the Northumbria Community is based. It is a Celtic Christian community for people around the world who abide by a daily Celtic Office (prayer liturgy). Spent two days there with my friend Joel, and a family called the Raine family. Andy, Anna and their kids Joel and Martha. It was my favorite time of the whole trip I would say. We walked the beaches, had cookouts, drank ice cold guinness, played guitar, met some locals and befriended them (easy to do in a small English community).

I finally got home having spent $450 more than planned, but feeling refreshed, and ready to get back to life in Canada. All around it was a beautiful trip, and I feel more hopeful that there is an exciting life ahead of me as a result of my travels.

Blessings, talk to you again soon!

Blog Marketing?!?

2005-06-15T14:08:00.000-03:00

I have a good friend who is at the forefront of Blogging. He has inadvertently led me to this point where I am considering, just this once, using my blog as a marketing tool. We'll see what happens.

I am currently seated at my desk in the office of St. Stephen's University. This school has been in existence since 1972, and has seen it's graduates go on to study at Oxford, write speeches for the Liberal party of Canada, intern in the Whitehouse, become CBC reporters, and to do a host of other interesting things. I didn't get as far away as the rest after graduating, but I don't mind.

This particular University is more like a community than an institution. We cook together, clean together, eat together, sleep under the same roof with each other, and essentially do life together. Along the way students study Western Civilization through the classic Literature of the last 3000 years up to today, through the most important philosophies of the last 3000 years, through studying the History of the west from the Greeks til today, and finally by travelling the world together in order to see the world they have been studying.

I have lived in a number of different social contexts in my life, and I have never found a place quite like SSU. People here genuine love each other and care for each other. When people are down someone intuitively comes along and picks them up. If someone is going through a hard time with school work, or in their faith in God, people will pray with them and encourage them. When people disagree, or even fight in our community, the desire for understanding and solidarity wins out in the end. In fact, the things about people that initially serve to induce conflict at SSU often eventually come to be the most endearing things about individuals. Through living together and studying together, and essentially being put through the proverbial mill together, healing comes to broken people who can look at each others differences with love and appreciation rather than with hurt and judgement.

Why am I telling you about this? Well you've probably figured it out by now, and if you haven't, maybe University isn't for you (wink). I encourage you to thionk about a Bachelor of Arts, or Master of Arts, or if you already have one, a Master's in Ministry at SSU. For character formation and faith building, for a deepening and unfolding love for God's creation, and for an education that exposes you to the most important developments in Art, Literature, and Philosophy in the last 3000 years, there is no other school quite like this one. While that's likely true about any school, what I really mean is that St. Stephen's University is significantly different from the rest. Here there is an uncommon fusion of academics and discipleship that is not found in other Universities, or in Bible Colleges. SSU is a place where students appreciate and engage their culture and history rather than reject it completely, but is also a place with an Ethos all it's own.

Feel free to visit anytime and see for yourself.

Ciao

Jolly ole Blightly

2005-05-28T06:35:00.000-03:00

I have made it safely to England...eventually.

Flying with Thomas Cook and a travel agent called "Canadian Affairs" I found myself delayed in Halifax for tuesday night. I had arrived with plenty of time according to my itinerary, only to be told that my plane had LEFT ALREADY. It seems "Canadian Affair" sent me bad information, and then couldn't do anything about getting me to Manchester without flying me to Toronto (the wrong direction) the next day. Instead of arriving on Wednesday morning as scheduled, after a 5.5 hour flight, I arrived Thursday morning, 28 hours late, after 9.5 hours flying. SUCKY!!!!

All the same, I did eventually arrive safe, albeit not so sound, and met up with Mark. Played a gig that very night, and it went pretty well. Got big cheers, lots of "sociables" and was given two free pints of lager. A pretty successful night. Mark's band was good. Much much better than I expected. They are usually quite silly, but now they seem to take being silly very seriously. It works.

Friday I slept until 1:30 p.m.. Only after a travel experience like I had can you say 13 hours of sleep is just right. And now it is saturday and we are heading to Worksop and eventually Wales for a football match. This is quite obviously an update post, and something deeper with substance will come soon, when I am bored probably.
Ciao.

Usher in a new week.

2005-05-16T13:54:00.000-03:00

I have had the best weekend I can remember having in quite some time. Went to Halifax in order to attend a bass playing seminar from Tony Levin who is easily my favorite bassist in the world. It's a great city to visit, and it just so happens that my good friend Tina lived there for a time, so I invited her to come along. She accepted, and we drove away early friday morning.

The bass workshop was spectacular. I arrived at the ticket office and was told that they were sold out. I asked if they were selling at the door and the lady said that they were, but the line was very long, and it didn't look good. I said "I drove five hours to be here, I'm going to see Tony Levin one way or another, so I guess I'll go line up." She reached into her pocket and handed me a ticket that had just been returned saying "gee whiz, if you came that far you deserve this." And voila, I had a ticket.

Following that incident I walked over to the hall where the event was going to take place and found a very long line indeed. A man was shouting directions to folks and I couldn't hear him, so I left the line and walked up to the front of the line, a bit to the left. At this point the man says "And if you already HAVE a ticket, line up over here, behind THIS guy!" And he pointed to me. So I was suddenly at the front of the line. I sat front, and centre, and absorbed everything the man (tony) had to say. It was unbelievably awesome.

Then Tina and I attended a David Usher concert, with Andy Stochansky opening. It was such a great show, right after such a great workshop. I couldn't believe how great the whole weekend was. Am I making anyone sick yet? I had better stop soon. Or right now.

Dearly beloved, we are gathered to say our goodbyes...

2005-05-05T16:58:00.000-03:00

Some thoughts I have been working through concerning post-modern literary theory and Jesus Christ.

In his essay “The Death of the Author”, Roland Barthes, when discuss the voicing of a line from a Balzac story, said that “No one, no ‘person’, says it: its source, its voice, is not the true place of the writing, which is reading.” The phraseology used by Balzac didn’t seem to be voiced as the main character, and didn’t seem to be placed as the author either, so Barthes had a revolutionary thought. He saw the emphasis, the voice behind these words as belonging to the reader. He said that the purpose of the author is to reach that point where only language acts, ‘performs’, and not ‘me’.
Thus he saw a connection between the writing of language (text) and dying. The author’s role diminished as the words found their way onto the page, and the reader’s role increased. In the same way creation was "written" from the imagination of God, and God intends for his creation to reach its fullest potential, the true author writes in the hope of using language to its fullest.

If a book is never read it is nothing more than black ink on white paper; the words themselves have no power. But when they are read the reader’s mind conjures images and the words become signifiers of some concept or idea that the reader brings into the moment. If you read this sentence and I begin to discuss a boat, you the reader can begin to envision the concept “boat”. But the reader has their own concept of “boat” before I encouraged any thought of a boat.

Barthes then proposes that the author dies when the writing process begins, or else the language itself has not been used to its fullest potential. Any of the author that persists in the writing, any thought to his/her own purpose for writing, should be preempted by the author’s desire to empower the reader, to empower the language.

In the world of Roland Barthes the "Author" and "God" hold the same place. In denying the existence of the author, Barthes believes that he is denying the authority of the idea of God, and presupposes human authority over life, creation, and essentially all things. Again, in relation to the author he says that As soon as a fact is narrated no longer with a view to acting directly on reality but intransitively, that is to say, finally outside of any function other than that of the very practice of the symbol itself, this disconnection occurs, the voice loses its origin, the author enters into his own death, writing begins.

I think that Barthes has missed a necessary connection between the death of the author, and the death of God. When Nietzsche said that God is dead he meant that the human need for a greater authority than the self was no longer regarded as necessary by contemporary modern European society. I think this thought has become annulled by a number of great blows to secular humanism, like the great war, WWII and many philosophical streams of thought that have come along since. God did in fact die, but not how Nietzsche meant it. Jesus submitted to death on a cross, sacrificing himself in order to restore meaning to each of us.

Barthes’ ‘death of the author’ brings new thought and potential to the understanding of the death of Jesus. God is in fact the ultimate author, who spoke and everything came into being. He gave authority to his creation, giving mankind dominion over the earth, and all that was in it. He literally died in the person of Jesus Christ, giving up his authority as fully God so that redemption and the law could be fulfilled, essential subjugating himself to a Law that he wrote himself.

Jesus is the word made flesh, the one who wrote the Law that governs creation, heaven and earth, the angels and arch-angels, satan, you and me. Jesus made all of this, and in doing so gave great authority to the creation. The author dies as the text is written, or else the text does not meet its potential. The reader does not receive all the fullness of the written word. Jesus died so that creation could receive all of the fullness of the great Author himself.

Christian Humour: an Oxy-moron?

2005-05-05T11:06:00.000-03:00

A Catholic priest goes into a local barber shop and gets a shave and a haircut. Afterwards when trying to pay the man, the Barber says "no father, my parents always told me not to take money from clergy. Your haircut is on the house.
The next morning when the barber first stepped outside waiting for him on the porch
he found two loaves of freshly baked bread.
Not long afterwards a Baptist minister happened to come through the town, and he stopped for a shave and a haircut, and the barber told him the same thing. The next day the barber went out his front door and waiting for him on the porch he found two blueberry pies freshly baked.
Then a Charismatic pastor came through town, and stopped in for a shave and a haircut. When he tried to pay the man, the Barber told him "no pastor, my parents always told me never to charge church leaders. Your haircut is on the house."
The next morning as the barber stepped out his front door, waiting for him on the porch he found ten more Charismatic Pastors.

Tee-hee. Well, I liked it anyway.

Two and a half men (go see a romantic comedy)

2005-05-04T11:28:00.000-03:00

To begin with, my previous post, about how all of my friends are plebian (plebeian for those who spell correctly) was a straight up joke. I was poking a bit of fun at a good friend, and also wondered how all my other good friends would react, and the answer was not surprising. You have responded with style.

I (a single guy) went to the movies with my friend Jeremy, a married guy, and we saw Fever Pitch, a romantic comedy surrounding the Red Sox. Understandably, Jeremy enjoyed the jokes, and the comedy, and I was a little more into the other aspect of the genre. It was a pretty good movie, highly predictable, but in the "oh I hope this happens next" and then it does, sort of way.
What I enjoyed about this movie was that the storyline demands change in the protagonists in order for things to progress. I think of a few other rom/com's that were less enjoyable, like...well I won't list any because then someone who liked that movie will disregard my point.
The regular formula for these is that the people are perfect for each other, and then a misunderstanding causes division, and then they figure it out, and all is well. In this movie the main characters are challenged at a higher level to give of themselves for the other.
If I were planning out life from the beginning, I would include someone in that life who challenges me in a deep way to give more of myself, and who I would in turn challenge in this way. I suspect that this idea was born in God's heart, that when he saw Adam and Eve together (or when he imagines any one of us with a companion) he knows that it will cause us to grow and become more fully ourselves, while encouraging another to do the same. It's a mystery, but I think that's how this goes.

Shoot for the lowest common denominator.

2005-05-02T18:31:00.000-03:00

It has been suggested that I should write shorter posts, and start new paragraphs more often. Until now it had not occurred to me that I should abandon proper literary etiquette in order to reach my readership, but perhaps I must. While the average blog is a quick peek into someone's day, like a half hour television sitcom, I tend to write about things that I find important, similar to a history channel documentary. I think of something my friend Nicole said: "I think the problem I have with relating to people is that I don't enjoy small talk. I prefer big talk."

C'est la vie, je pense. I suppose that I do need to break up paragraphs more, because I can imagine incredibly busy people taking the time to start reading my posts, getting distracted, and not really knowing where they left off. But shorter posts? That's more difficult for me to agree with. I write in a similar vein to the way I think. First comes the topic, or event, and next come many many thoughts about what I think that might mean, or how my life may be changed by some random thing that has happened to me that day.

Basically, I think that if my posts seem too lengthy for you, you probably aren't going to comprehend what I have to say anyway. I suppose I am still learning how to effectively communicate with the plebian sector. Worse still, I am almost certain that Mark Hardy will be the only one who reads this and knows what plebian means. Okay, and probably Andrew Gazaneo. All the same, if you got this far in the post you are probably smart enough to have realized that the entire thing is rife with facetious jocularity, and hopefully I won't have to apologize to that many of you. And if you didn't read this far, any apology would be redundant, because you wouldn't be reading it, now would you? Hope this made at least one of you laugh. (I'm talking about YOU, tandy.)

4 stages of community.

2005-04-25T11:13:00.000-03:00

I've been working on this for a little while. The resulting "essay" makes for a fairly long post, but I really mean what I am saying, so if you want to know what I think about community please read on!

20th Century theorists like Bonhoeffer, Peck and Vanier have written a great deal on community. I would like at this time to appropriate a few of their thoughts in relation to the time I have spent at SSU, and also in relation to a time when I lived in a somewhat looser-knit community on Bridesburg drive.

There are four distinctive levels of personal interaction with Community. They are successive, and each one is necessary. You cannot typically skip any of these steps. Also it is fair to say that at different times in a community there will be people at different stages of growth in relation to this way of seeing things. So here goes.

Peck said there are four stages:
-Pseudocommunity
-Chaotic Community
-Emptiness
-Real Community

One who exists in "Pseudo community" is typified by a smiley, conflict avoidant attitude. At SSU this is standard for first year students who have never lived in community before. They are surrounded by friendly, outgoing people en masse for the first time, and the idea of being genuine or vulnerable is terrifying. Instead of being open to others strengths and weaknesses they close off while desperately trying to seem confident and open. Often times people in this stage of community will swing really far to one side and become "over-sharers" who tell you their deepest darkest secrets in your first meeting. This is actually a defense mechanism, and people will rarely be completely honest about how they FEEL about what they are telling you. I think of the School of the Heart when I think of this one. When I first started there in 1999 I was an over-sharer. I wanted everyone to know that I knew I had made mistakes, and was worse off than them, and that even so I could stand in God's grace. The truth was that I was a scared shitless punk who didn't think he could measure up to the people around him. So I faked it.
This level of community is a necessary stage for people because it forces them to be uncomfortable with their own state of mind and way of seeing things. Frankly, we see a lot of things wrong, and need to realize that.

Chaotic Community.
Oh this is probably the most painful one to watch. Chaotic community is so named because it is that state of living together where some of the people have realized that they have issues, and realize that they need to fix some of their viewpoints. But more so they have realized that everyone ELSE has issues and needs to fix some of THEIR viewpoints. So basically what you get is a group of desperately wounded individuals trying to heal each other by bringing everyone else into line with their own ideals. This is so tough because the heart is in the right place. We see someone suffer from a problem and so greatly want to see them overcome. We get to Chaotic community by realizing that growth is needed, but we likely haven't lived in community long enough to know how to be patient with others, and how to accept them. I came to SSU immediately after SoM. I had pretty much gone through pseudo-community, and chaotic community at SoM, and moved on to the next level, but I definitely reverted back to Chaotic Community when I came out here. Typically Second year students exist in this way at SSU. Many of them have been in community long enough at this time to feel at home here, but not long enough to know how to welcome the new first years here. I walked in to school fully believing that I was going to fix every issue anyone had. It was UHH-GLEEE!

Next comes emptiness. While Chaotic community is the hardest to watch, emptiness is the hardest one to personally endure. I find myself here more than any other stage these days, but I know it is unto something, so I endure it.
Emptiness is the stage of community where some of the folks have been living together long enough to recognize that change has to happen in themselves, and long enough to want to force that change on others. Now they recognize that after sometime of living in community with other people, and subconsciously going through all of this, they still have issues and haven't brought about any discernable change in themselves or others. The truth is that by the time people get to this point they are probably becoming more and more respected by their peers, and admired by those who aren't yet at this stage. People suffering through emptiness are often seen as "deep, contemplative, stable, kind, quiet" people. They don't talk much, and while the second year students are trying to heal the first year students, these who suffer emptiness seem compassionate and loving. Inwardly these people feel like they have nothing to offer. Think of the TACF volunteer who has been through the SoM and now has returned, hoping to find that sense of connectedness that they had felt in their time at SoM. Now they feel a bit like an outsider, sit together at meals trying to look like they are perfectly comfortable with all the boisterous students shouting and being silly, but secretly questioning what they really are doing there. At SSU the third year students are most typically in this place, but you get some quick learners and some slower ones too. The travel study at SSU primarily occurs during third year, so while students are wrestling with their own self worth, and whether they really belong in a community, they go on the road with their class and go through these issues whilst seeing the world. There is enough newness and life that they tend to get by pretty well.

The forth stage is simply called Community, or Real Community. I'm told it takes time to get to this place, and that once achieved it makes a person pretty much ruined for any other kind of life. Real Community is the place that is the opposite of every problem with the other three stages. A person who exists in genuine community with his or her peers is not just living with them, or near them, but is actually interacting with them on a soul level. A person at this level does not avoid conflict when conflict is necessary. A person at this level does not feel a great pressure to defend themselves against possible impact from others. A person at this level is compassionate enough to want to help others, but unlike chaotic community, here they want to help them become more completely who they are meant to be, not just to stick them in a box of one's own ideals. When people live together in Real Community they recognize that they have something unique and beautiful to offer.
One day I was sitting behind a drum set while Gregg played guitar. Sarah danced, Mel sang. I drummed, and another Sarah played piano. It wasn't planned, it just happened. In the distance was another friend who wept quietly. She came over later to explain that she saw each of us with something to offer, and realized that she had nothing. Clearly this wasn't true. She had nothing else at the moment so she offered her tears. Sounds corny, but seriously, her heart was so moved to give something, and feeling like she couldn't contribute anything to the moment she wept. Trust me, that counts for something. The thing about Community is that you have to WANT to give something of yourself. The reason I am even writing this is that I realized that I WANT to contribute to people living in community, even those that I don't live with anymore, and this was something that I could do.

I am convinced that Jesus hopes that we will live in community. Even if we live in different towns, or neighborhoods, we converge in some way, and each of us has something of ourselves to give, if we are willing.

Winds of Change blow over my head...

2005-04-24T13:25:00.000-03:00

"It is useless to think of what has not been as in opposition to what has been"-Hermann Hesse.
"Every road you did not choose to walk is as much apart of you as those that you did." -Jake

Today is the last day that residence is open at St. Stephen's University. This time last year I was packed up, heading for Ontario, and preparing for the unknown as a graduate of SSU. This year I watch as many of my friends drive away, and I feel happily unsettled. I am so proud of all of the snot-nosed punks who didn't know crap about crap, that leave here as strong, educated, spirit-led individuals capable of making it through this life doing remarkable things along the way. My path since graduation has been bizarre and amazing, and I am sure each of them will have similar adjectives to attach to their futures.
On a personal level I find it very difficult to face the idea of staying behind when everyone else goes. I recognize that even in remaining here I am moving forward in my life. I have never been known as a guy who faithfully completed everything he began. I have the blessing of many Apostolic gifts, but the converse is that I am persistently looking to the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing, and am not great at doing THIS thing. By staying here I will get a great opportunity to keep doing what God has given me to do for this time. While visitting a friend in a neighboring town he outlined it thusly: Well, you gotta drive back to St. Stephen when you leave here, so you gotta take main street out to the highway, then turn left to get on the highway and head home that way. What if you were driving down Main street, got sick of waiting for the highway, and turned left onto some dirt road? You'd be heading the right direction, but chances are you would take way longer to get there in the long run. If you have your destination in mind, if you know where you're trying to go, take your time and go the right route. Be faithful to the end of Main street and you'l find your self at the highway. Try to rush through the Main street portion of your journey and Home will end up being further away than you thought.
This made a lot of sense to me. When I prayed for a dream, God gave me one. When I asked him for direction, this job is what he showed me. I don't want to be in a big huge hurry to throw that back in God's face. "Hey, thanks for the hope and the future, and thanks that you let me in on the plan of how to get there, but this part is getting a bit tiresome, so I'm just gonna declare myself ready for the next bit, and go ahead on my own. I'm sure it'll work out fine. Bye God, see you when you catch up to me." It's silly really. I can see that I have to finish here in God's time, not my own, but I still feel such a pressure to get moving. Someone gave me that wonderful advice "God only steers a moving ship". Wow, that sure reveals alot about what people think "moving" and "not moving" is. I wonder what God considers to be a "moving ship". In the big picture I think it is moving through life lessons, moving faithfully through the work you have been given. Everyone around me is moving to another town, and I am staying put. I don't think that necessarily implies that I am standing still. I would question that advice in a similar way if it was offered to someone else. I think that when we don't know what the heck to do, it can be true that the best first step is just to start something, anything really. And at least then there would be some momentum to go along with God's direction. So maybe the idea isn't totally cracked. For now I am going to stay the course.
It is probably the first time i have been successful in doing this, and it is made more difficult by watching everyone else turn left onto the highway, and knowing that my left turn isn't for a few more miles.

Mud-fights and Snow balls

2005-04-18T11:19:00.000-03:00

The Sun is shining, What can be ill?
Yesterday afternoon a large number of SSU students were seen lurking with intent to spray a certain Jacob with a water hose. They had been hanging out on the lawn, and set up a "slip'N'slide" and a kiddy-pool. The hose in question was in the hands of one Leslie Beck, who crept up behind the warm, dry hero of our story. She sprayed him good, and all had a good laugh. The laughter ended momentarily when our hero realized that all of the stomping around and spraying water that these fine students had been doing had made a few mud puddles in the lawn. Jacob scooped up a huge fistfull of mud and slopped it all over Jeremiah who had laughed the loudest when Leslie sprayed Jacob. A giant mud fight ensued (photos to follow) and by the end of the afternoon there were twentyfive mudcovered punks who looked like cavemen/women.
After the mud had lost its appeal a few people noticed that there was still a huge pile of snow melting in the parking lot from weeks of plowing. The next thing we knew there was a snowball fight going on. It was the most insane thing I have seen in a long time. We were covered in mud, the weather was hot and sunny, 22 degrees Celsius, and we were hucking snowballs at each other.
Clearly the end of the semester is drawing nigh, and people have their fair share of frustrations, successes, joys and pains. We will be saying goodbye to each other for the summer, and even then, not everyone will make it back in the fall. For one afternoon none of that mattered, and we were all kids again, playing in the sun. Nothing deep today folks, no lengthy meditation on the value of suffering, or the human condition. No treatise on time, or infinity. Today I just wanted to let you know that the sun is shining, and all is well.

The Way to A Man's Heart

2005-04-14T14:15:00.000-03:00

I have lived in St. Stephen for just under five years. Last Saturday, for the first time, I went to a local "Stever's" house for a meal. My friend Tina and I have been getting to know each other a bit over the last few weeks, since she started coming to my movie watching small group. Well, I walked in to her place on Saturday to find her preparing what she found to be a suitable meal for having male company; Nachos and beer. Three different types of beer, to be exact. You see, this is clearly a woman who understands the way to a man's heart. I was stunned. I stopped for a second and then had to ask "So, what are you doing later? Like, for the rest of your life?"
I couldn't believe it. Only one week earlier it had been dinner at my place, and I made a meal consisting of rice, guava and asparagus, and chicken breast stuffed with salmon, thinking that surely this will be an impressive meal. Then she trumps my meal by serving Nachos and Beer. There is a point to my sharing all of this, but it must be veiled in another quick story.
A few weeks back there was a conference for youth in Atlantic Canada. People danced, waved flags, recieved prayer, were healed emotionally and physically, and it was a great time in my eyes. On the drive home a girl in my car said that she was shocked by the whole thing. I inquired further, and she said that the flag waving, and jumping around was a bit too wild to be proper Christian worship. This got me to thinking. Our most impressive music, and most powerful preaching, and all the smoke and lasers and dimmed lights, and dancing very well, basically all of our most vibrant energetic stuff is no more impressive to God than a few old ladies singing hymns in a tiny stone church in the North of England somewhere. I made a huge deal of making a great looking, sophisticated feast for my friend, believing that it would impress her, and she liked it very much. But she came back with Nachos and Beer and I was floored by how awesome it was. Simple, even rugged you might say, but I loved it. I think that with God our most sophisticated attempts at life and worship, and what have you, are just as childish as a bunch of crazed teens waving flags and stomping around. Metaphorically, a gourmet meal in our eyes is just as awesome and lovely to God as Nachos and a few cold ones. He is the God of the lowly, who humbled himself to redeem us. Funny how I sometimes think i have to look good, or have my life sorted out before I can really draw close to God. Thankfully I am getting a clearer picture of just how universally accepted and loved we all are, that I am.

More Fire? Yeesh!

2005-04-08T13:10:00.000-03:00

Some of you may know that I am thinking about studying in England next fall. To give a little context to the proceeding blog, I think you should know that I love SSU, and I love St. Stephen in general. I barf out some negative stuff here, and I don’t apologize for it. But when you read what I have here, you should know that it comes from the place of being a small human being with a huge universe spread out in front of him, wondering where to go and what to do. It is a humbling feeling, and it is probably the fourth or fifth time I have come to this type of place in the last three years. I love my life, and I love God for giving it to me. Sometimes the feelings just well up and you have to express them somehow. I welcome each of you into my struggle, and if you would like to see some of what is going on for me during this season, please read on.
I am becoming increasingly aware that all of this, the longing for change, the desire to move on, is a familiar sensation, and that I was initially excited about having finally subdued it when I moved here, thinking that this was going to stick.
So I am thinking alot about my future, and my heart, and my goals, and my past, and my longings, and my reason. To be honest I feel like a cloud. Allow me to quote Hesse.
"O lovely, restless floating clouds! I was an ignorant child but I loved and contemplated them, little knowing that I too should go through life like a cloud, wandering, everywhere a stranger, floating between time and eternity."
I feel this way sometimes, as though there is no rest for me, no home for me. I crave it, but honestly do not feel as though I have found it yet. I love so many aspects life in the SSU community. I love the relationships, the work of the University in the lives of the students, and the broader support that I have found in this town. I see SSU as a place that prepares students to be passed the proverbial baton. In Hebrews we are told that since we have such a great cloud of witnesses that we should run the race with perseverance. In my view, SSU is not the place where people are passed the baton, and told to run with it. This is the place where the runners are trained, and when they leave after however long they stay people are ready to be given the responsibility of running the race. Folks who have not studied here, but encounter SSU students have commented that they are wise beyond their years (I think specifically of John from Guelph, who knows Dan Wilt, and Dan Livingston). I don't want to leave SSU until I have received all I had to receive, and have given all I had to give. But I come to work and often wonder how I once believed that this would be a position that used my strengths. I have had times here when I was able to flex my muscles, and do what I was good at. There have been times when I have done it well, and times when that has not been the case. It has been more of a struggle of late than it has ever been for me here. I don't do any of the things I love to do very regularly. I love to meet new people. I love to explain things to people, especially things that I am passionate about. I love to play music. I love to read and to learn. At work I type. and email. and coordinate. and plan. and strategize. and crunch numbers. I feel more like a salesman, and less like an Ambassador.
There is a Golden, perfect, flawless, spotless, complete expression of Jake in the eyes of my Father. He sees me, not as a bumbling sinful jerk, but as I one day shall be, when all things have been made new. When the corruptible is clothed in the incorruptible all pain and striving and hardship will cease. The difficulties I endure now will seem like nothing through eternal eyes. Really, it’s true. One day I will die. I will face the great change, that makes all other changing seem like nothing. And after that moment in time, there will be eternity. With the eyes of the finite I see all of my problems and I see that I only have one shot at this. I feel the pressure of making a decision that will open many doors, while completely eliminating many others. That is a terrifying concept for me right now. I have so much that I want to keep about the prospect of staying here, and so much I want to keep of the prospect of going away. I simply cannot have both. In the eyes of the finite that sucks. Through the eyes of the infinite it is like nothing. But it sure is hard right now.

I am a pretty happy guy, seriously. This is just the one thing that is difficult. There is so much that is good about life that is taking a bit of a backseat in this post. Please feel free to pray, and let me know if you feel strongly about anything I have said. Oh, and cheques are still welcome.

A fine evening, and a busy week!

2005-03-30T13:09:00.000-04:00

So, this has been the busiest weekend of my life. On Thursday I drove an hour up the highway to the city of Saint John. There was a youth conference called Deeper2005 going on, and I had to be there to do a few different things. I was playing bass for the friday night worship band, and there were lots of preparations. Thursday night was a good night, a God night you might say. I have never seen Vineyard kids worship like this before. Then Friday morning I drove to the airport at 5:00am, and flew to Toronto. I had a great breakfast with some of my good friends,and then went to work. I set up a booth for SSU in the foyer at the FreshWind Youth conference at TACF. Unfortunately the MC had forgotten to play our promotional video, so nobody at the conference knew that I was there. C'est la vie.
That afternoon I flew back to Saint John, and played Bass, and it was really awesome. Then that night I slept like no man has ever slept before. Saturday was another long day. I went to the conference for 9:15 am, and spent the better part of the day praying for kiddos going through tough stuff. The conference ended at 11:00pm that night and I was convinced to go to a pub to see a band play. Five lovely ladies were going and they wanted male companionship. Gee, twist my arm will ya? But the band was in fact very very good, and the night was a lot of fun. I drove home that night, and my head hit the pillow at 4:00am. Sunday morning I was expected to play bass in church. I slept until 1:00pm, so boo to that one I guess. Sunday was a bit of a surprise. I had Sunday dinner with a family I know in town, and they hid a bunch of chocolate eggs and we had a great time finding them. Monday I had to visit a friend from brazil who had formerly been living illegally in Canada, and now lived illegally in the USA. It was fairly tiring. Tuesday I travelled to Fredericton to promote SSU at some high schools, and got home just in time to make supper for a friend, which ended up lasting until 11:00pm. So all in all I have had an extremely busy week, but last night was so relaxing and enjoyable that I actually feel pretty good now. But it shows me that working through the weekend makes for a fairly bizarre week.
Thanks to my friends who have been praying for me of late. The decision making process continues. Please keep me in your prayers, and feel free to tell me anything that comes up during those times.
Blessings til next time.

What good is all the knowledge in the world, if I have not Love?

2005-03-16T15:43:00.000-04:00

Welcome coming Spring, turning of the seasons.
As the planet spins, and the calendar gets slowly slimmer
so life returns to me in the form of a dream
For as a people without a vision perish,
So a person who has been far from attaining the vision
feels something like the pains of death.

So dear friends, I have begun the exquisitely painful process of discerning the way ahead. I believe that I have written that no lifetime decisions should be made in February, and I maintain that view, however this is March, and the process can begin. In early March, 2003, I spoke with a trusted friend and my situation at that time was a stressful one. I had begun something in my education at SSU that I had not finished. I found myself in a job I did not enjoy. I think that everyone is created as a unique and gifted person. We all have certain strengths and gifts. At the time that I went to see my friend I felt as though my life was ordered in such a way that I was not using many of my gifts, and was not moving in my strengths. I believe that when a man does something he is good at, when he can see progress in his acheivements, he feels more like a man. He can see himself more clearly in the light of what type of person God made him to be. In March 2003, my friend said the same thing. "Jake," he said. "You're not doing what you were made for. That's the problem." We talked for a while about what it could possibly be that I was in fact made to do. Whether there was a job I could do, a career I could pursue that, when attained, would be fulfilling for me. I dreamed of the day that I could go home from work with a smile on my face for having done a good job at something I loved. Teaching people to appreciate and analyze English Literature seemed like a good way forward. With the blessing of my emloyer and co-workers I went back to school to finish my Bachelor's degree, and have since done so. On the way were some serious hitches. I quit my job to take a position as a Sailing Instructor and no sooner did my present job finish, than my new job crapped out. The sailing company was run by an old man who promptly died of a stomach disorder, and I couldn't find another job all summer. I spent all of my savings on rent, and had to get a loan to pay for school. But eventually I got back in school, and finished my first degree.
Today I work in a job that is not visibly bringing me any closer to my former ideal. The desire I had to become a teacher empowered me in my school work, and I was able to do much better work than I had been before. But now I find myself looking at my former vision and wondering how it came to pass that I stopped going for it.
I think that God has had a hand in this, and I will explain why.
I finished my BA by travelling across Europe with my school. The whole time I wondered what to do next. I discovered that the Student Recruiter for my University had resigned, and I knew that this was an opportunity that God was placing before me. Do you know how that feels? To be praying for something that doesn't really have a shape, like "what do I do now?" and then something comes along and you recognize it as the exact thing you were praying for, only you didn't know it before? Well if you do, that's what it was like for me. So I applied for the job, and got it, and have worked at it ever since.
I have come to think that this job is only for a season. I think this for a few reasons: 1) It is not my dream, and doesn't resemble any of the dreams God has given for me. 2)It does not make very much use of my strengths and gifts. 3)My heart is very excited about the prospect of pursuing a Master's Degree and moving on to teaching English.
So I can confidently speculate that this place, this job, this season is not going to last forever, but I must also recognize that when I sought God for a way ahead, this is what he showed me to do. I don't want to cut his plans short simply because they don't make sense to me. To this end, I am entering a time of discerning. I am going to spend the next three months going about my job with as much enthusiasm as I can. I will also apply to school, and get all the finances in place, so that when the time comes to make up my mind I will have two genuine choices in front of me.
This is a uniquely terrifying time when it would be very easy to let go of one idea and embrace another, but I am praying that I will have what it takes to make a Godly, Spirit-led decision about this. I know what my desire is, and I want to take that into account, but my own opinion about where I should be only makes up one piece of the puzzle. If you, my dear friends will pray for me in this time I am confident that it will make a signifigant difference. Above all I want to become the man God made me to be, and it's scary making decisions that will influence my path to that destination without knowing exactly what to do. So please pray for me. Cheques are also welcome.

shameless self-promotion

2005-03-09T16:01:00.000-04:00

If you want to read up on a sweet new band, check out this link

www.reluvnotion.blogspot.com

There you will find what will have to pass as this week's blog, at least for now.

You can't miss it!

2005-03-03T14:45:00.000-04:00

David Wilcox makes an interesting obseravtion about life

"I sometimes write songs that are metaphors.
It's not that I'm trying to, it's more like
...well I'm minding my own business and the
metaphors just jump me you know? And I think
it's because things bug me for metaphorical
reasons. Like bad directions. I hate bad directions.
I'm heading to a concert and I'm supposed to go on
at Seven. And the directions are "go down the road
till you reach (I don't know, something ridiculous)
the really big blue Poodle and turn right. You can't
miss it. And they always say that you can't miss it,
which is the kiss of death. Because then I will be
driving and driving, and I'll think "i must have missed
it. I'll turn back." But they said I can't miss it.
It's just like love. I asked my parents "How will I know
when it's true love?" and what do they say "oh, you'll
know, you'll know." Well that's even worse than "You can't
miss it". Just imagine your 85 years old: No thanks,
not interested. They said that I would know when it was
true love. Besides, I'm still looking for the big blue
Poodle."

I think that there is a fine line between walking God's path and walking our own. We are always making choices, every minute, and we seldom stop and inquire as to what God is saying. And even when He does speak extraordinarily clearly, it is a choice on our behalf to choose the path He directs us onto. I am beginning to think that it is not in our choices alone that we are responsible to God. It is clear throughout human existence in the bible that there is something bigger going on here than just our lives, and our decisions. There is something more important than just our obedience to God. Really I am talking about the attitude of our hearts toward God. Jesus says that the most important qualities a person can have is that they "love God, and love their neighbour." The common thread among most of my friends isn't that they are exceptionally good at this, but that they are trying to become good at it. I often get so bogged down in trying to discern what is the exact will of God in my big decisions, and I assume that he is greatly concerned with my walking the razor's edge that is His will. But where the heck do I get the idea that it's supposed to be this one golden road I am meant to walk every step of the way? It would seem through a closer examination of scripture, the history of Israel, and what I have seen of God in my own life, that He is much more concerned with me becoming a person of Gold. Where ever I go, whatever path I walk, whether it lead me to one place or another, I am called to be light to the world. So I am not entirely concerned that every piece of my living life falls perfectly withing what I temporarily find to be "the will of God for that moment" but instead submit myself to whatever challenges he brings my way, do my best to love God as totally as I can, and similarly to love my neighbour as myself.
This all having been said, I have at different times in my life had such clear and obvious direction from God that it would have been foolish not to have recognized it as such. When He has given me direct guidance I have done my best to obey him. He really is like a Father. Imagine going on a hike with your dad, only your like 9 years old. You walk along with him, and for the most part nothing is said except for the occassional "oh look at that robin, or watch how the squirrel stuffs his face!" But then you reach a cliff with a spectacular view. You're 9 years old, so you march confidently to the edge and start looking down to see how high up you are when your father's voice says "step back from that ledge a bit there will ya?" The whole time he knows that if you started to lose your footing he could grab hold of you and steady you, but the first line of defense is a gentle suggestion. Of course the whole way through this scenario you could make a stupid choice and ignore the obvious danger, and throw yourself off the cliff at great speed, which your earthly father would have no power to remedy most likely. But luckily for us we are the children of a much more powerful Father.
So I leave you with this meditation, and I will continue to wonder where the choices I make meet up with the plans God has. I know he has a plan for each of us, I am just not convinced that he is limitted in his means of acheiving those plans. In the meantime I will do my best to be the type of person he plans for me to be.
God Bless you all.

hmmm...what is to be done?

2005-02-25T21:00:00.000-04:00

It has recently come to my attention that some folks find my blog entries to be a bit on the long side. One person commented that it's just that I have that type of brain, that I like to really hash things out. It is true that I think best in an active way, getting my thoughts out there, and seeing where I logically take them. Sometimes it only seems logical to me, and less so to others. Well, that's language for you. I can say pretty much anything, and whether I believe it or not, you have to interpret it as though I am being perfectly serious, and then decide if you agree with me or not. Luckily I don't really care if you agree. I don't mean that in a cynical way, but rather, I accept you dear friends for the people that you are. It could be that you have differing opinions on certain things, and I feel no compulsion to pigeon-hole you into my way of viewing things. Of course there are times when I find a particular view offensive, or destructive, and my in the interests of comfort and peace of mind suggest an alternate view on an issue, and see where it goes. I get into some great conversations this way, and also some fantastic fights. Remember that I think things through by hashing them out, so sometimes I am in the middle of an idea and someone will point something out to me that alters how I get to the end of the idea. Or they assume I am already at the end, and they don't like the implications. For example:

In class one day we were discussing consumerism, and the idea arose that there is no more room on the fringe of western society. Being a freaky outsider who doesn't buy what other people buy, and won't wear what other people wear, and who don't care about petty material things has all become a marketting bracket. Designers and Corporations have learned that there is money to be made by selling us stuff that looks like we are dirty hippies that don't care what we look like. Ever wonder why American Eagle shirts and pants come pre-wrinkled, and often even pre-torn?
We were taking the line of thought pretty far, and began talking about Church. I love corporate/communal worship times, meaning times when a large number of people gather together and praise God together. One student in the class discussed how she doesn't like this type of thing, because she doesn't feel like it offers her a chance to give anything unique and original to God. We talked about the Western Man's need to be unique, and the angst that comes from learning that there are other people who are very similar to us in our individual values and tastes. I began to think about Vampire movies, and how everyone is turned into Vampires, except the hero and a few of his friends. I was in the middle of thinking about this when I began to speak. "Why is it that in Vampire Movies the last couple of people are so intent on running away? If every one is a freakin' Vampire, why not just let them bite you and become one too?" The obvious implications of this in the context of the previous discussion was that I was instructing my friend to stop being afraid, give up her individuality, and just become a brainless zombie like the rest of us Christians. In actuality I was just thinking my way down the line to inquire as to where we derive our sense of uniqueness, and if maybe that it is in our desire to be unique that we find our selves, but that's sure not the first thing that came out of my mouth. So she misunderstood me at first, but had known me long enough to say "I don't think I like what your saying," to which I was able to respond "oh, gosh no, I don't mean that the hero should let the Vampire bite him, I mean 'why is it that he doesn't? What is it that drives him?' and maybe in the answer we will see some part of what drives us." And all was well, and the class carried on.
So what I am saying through all of this is that I think God knew what he was talking about when He saw fit to pass some instructions down to the rest of us. "Be quick to listen, slow to speak...."
So that having been said, talk to me!

Stop talkin' 'bout my wife!!!

2005-02-11T16:57:00.000-04:00

I currently live in a small town in New Brunswick. It is a nice place, and has its charm, but there are some real characters around here. I think of Garnet, whose IQ is likely around 60. He hangs out at the downtown Tim Hortons (that's right, we have two) and he lives in a group home for the mentally disadvantaged. He doesn't know my name, but everytime he sees me he comes over and asks where my wheels are. This relates back to a time when I stopped to let him cross the street, and he walked over to my car to thank me and say hi. Traffic came to a standstill as he told me I better shave off my beard because Cathy hates beards.
You may be thinking "this post is kinda weird. Doesn't seem consistent with what Jake is normally doing with his blog." Well, sure, but Garnet is abnormal, so a post about him should be abnormal. You see, his reference to Cathy makes sense to him, because Cathy is the lady who comes in and shaves the faces of anyone who needs it at the group home. So he associates her activity of removing beards with her having a distaste for facial hair. Maybe she loves beards more than anyone, but has to shave them for the guys who can't really shave their own. I guess I can understand that. But what gets me is that he has the exact same thing to say to me everytime he sees me. It never changes. It never developes. I think this speaks to me that Garnet has a very simple, ordered life that never alters in any significant way. He probably couldn't handle it if it did. I feel a small modicum of envy, in that this is a man who is never surprised by anything overly negative, but then I realize that he is never amazed by anything wonderful either. It seems to me that this simple little town, this simple little life still catches me off guard sometimes. I find myself challenged and encouraged in unexpected ways. I came to live and work here with an idea that I knew what to expect, and I am regularly surprised, in positive and negative ways, quite often. Perhaps it is because I still leave room in my life for growth. This is to say that as a person I have some of the faculties necessary to accept challenges and overcome them, if I am open. While I occassionally resent change, and the effort required to live this life, I am glad that this whole journey isn't over after just one or two adventures. There is a lot I can learn from guys like Garnet, if I am willing to take the time to see the opportunity, and take hold of it. Surely one day I will leave this town, heck one day I will leave this whole life, and when I do I hope I have learned all I could, and grown in as many ways as are made available to me. In the meantime, here I will stay.

Whose Voice do we Heed?

2005-02-08T14:51:00.000-04:00

These are not the days for making decisions. I don't mean that in a grand cosmic sense, but rather that February is not an appropriate time for making lifetime decisions. They say that you should never go grocery shopping when you're hungry, because you will only buy whatever tickles your fancy at the time, and later you will have nothing of any substance to nourish you. This is the same principle. When the sky is perpetually grey, the earth is covered in snow, and life is in hibernation, everything is coloured by that. Nothing seems cheerful in February. Nothing seems to work out right in the late winter. And I am as far from my memory of last spring as I can be, without yet seeing signs of this coming spring. The problem I face is that I want to study for a master's degree, and would have to think long and hard about where to go to acheive this, and if I found a place to go, then I would have to think about whether I really had everything I would need to do it or not. In February I can only see the grey. I don't have enough money. My grades aren't good enough. Even if I did get in, I am still not sure what exacty to study. In otherwords, I can only see the downsides to everything. In the summer all of this will seem like it just adds to the adventure. All the challenges that seem impossible now, will add to the excitement in the days to come. But in the meantime comes discouragement, disillusionment (which isn't always a bad thing), and if it gets really bad, despair. As we learned in Anne of Green Gables, to despair is to forget God, and i'll be honest, sometimes I get close. But I remember that this is the time when all of the influences and voices are grey. Soon there will come a day when all things seem possible again, and in the meantime I just gotta keep my head down, and get through the winter.
In case you haven't picked up on it yet, I have been thinking all-together too much about moving on, packing up and packing it in, and getting a job in a factory somewhere. Obviously this would be no more satisfying to me than the work I am doing now. Clearly there is no one place to live that will satisfy me more than another. It all depends on my attitude. So what if the grass isn't green right here? It's not really any greener anywhere else. But soon all the grass everywhere will begin to grow again. When my heart is troubled I listen to the voice of my mind, which says "maybe it's okay to stay here afterall". When my mind can't figure it out I follow the guidance of those respected friends who know me, and know what I am going through. There is so much good when things are good, but it's hard to remember that when it's February, and there is no sunlight. God knows what's going on in my heart, and he has put the goods inside me to get through this winter, and into better times. I suppose this isn't such a bad place. I guess the snow is kinda nice. Clouds don't suck too bad...oh heck I like it here well enough. See you again when the winter blahs have passed.

Existential Angst

2005-01-31T14:35:00.000-04:00

This weekend I suffered a bit of an existential crisis. In the end everything worked out, so don't start worrying, just read on.
So, this whole incarnation thing is kinda tricky, and since I met Jesus it has only become more and more involving. I used to live under a type of existential philosophy wherein I did whatever the hell I wanted at the time. It was more of a pre-determination by way of quantum-impulses sort of thing. I would be at home, thinking of coffee, and I would go out and get coffee. While I was there I would have an impulse to smoke a cigarette and would go outside and do it. I would think a comment in conversation and I would spit it out with no forethought as to it's implications. There was very little introspection or self awareness. I had no sense at all of any importance to anything I did. I didn't value anything except fulfilling the impulsive desires that came along. When I met Jesus a lot changed. Suddenly I found meaning where there was no meaning before. I saw an importance in my own existence. I don't mean to say that I became important, that I became a bigshot all of a sudden, but simply that in the act of believing that an all-powerful God had made me, I developed a larger sense of the ontological necessity of my existence. Basically I came to know that I had a purpose greater than simply following my impulses. That has proven to be a stunning revelation that has propelled me through some big changes in my life, even uncomfortable changes some of the time. The positive side of the knowledge that you are made for a purpose is that you know you can keep truckin' and that things will come around. The negative side of knowing this about yourself is that you can go weeks, even months without relaxing, without truly resting. To take this a step further, when you realize your own importance in God's created universe, you can fall into this performance anxiety, forgeting that God is able to keep you, and spending all day thinking too deeply about how to best acheive plans and aspirations that aren't entirely your own. Imagine having an employer who tells you that you are important to the company, but who fails to give you any guidelines to your role in the company, or how to do your job. At first you would enjoy a sense of encouragement "oh, I am important". But before long you would wonder what to do next, then think "I am not that important after all, as I don't know what to do around here, but everything still works out fine. These people clearly don't need me." This company allegory doesn't translate directly, but this is how I have been feeling about myself lately. I have kept myself so busy trying to "do my job", both professionally and spiritually, that I have engendered a sense of unimportance, thinking that I am tucked away in the corner, doing nothing, but somehow creation carries on just fine. Then this weekend I visitted a friend who was going through similar issues, and had decided that the moral constraints of following Jesus were not worth the trouble. There was a deep sorrow in her eyes, as though something big and serious was missing, but there was also a sense of emotional weightlessness. Nothing carried any importance. There was no burden of responsibilty or purpose to anything. It reminded my of my former Existential way of living. But tempered in the carelessness of living impulse by impulse was a small death that I had never known when I was living that way. Maybe it's because I had never known any better kind of life, and therefore didn't have that underlying self-awareness to turn my back on, as she was doing. It was the death of caring, the death of faith. Not faith in God, as a belief in the goodness of God was still present, but a death of faith in the whole arranging of life as they knew it. She knew that many of her preconceived notions about God, forgiveness, the Church, and living for Jesus were inaccurate, and rather than searching for the deeper truth behind it all, she has turned her back on anything that smacks of her old life. And to turn one's back on the way one has always lived is indeed a crushing thing. It causes immediate insecurities and anxieties that can only be seen as natural self-preservation instincts. These can cause such confusion about one's very identity, making one bring about a shocking change in personality that may be offensive to one's former friends and loved ones. I know, as I once did so myself. I went straight from being a drug addict to judging and alienating my friends for their habits with reckless abandon. I went from nascent profligacy to aggresive piety seemingly over night, and I made no apologies at the time. This friend of mine had been raised in church, and has now adopted a psuedo-christian world-view based on her own impulses, choosing to ignore any sense of greater purpose to any of this human incarnation. I travelled from having no understanding of meaning, and being a bit of a jerk, to discovering a new sense of meaning while exploding into a sense of self-righteousness that came with it. She has gone from being a kind, somewhat committed follower of Christ, to being a disenfranchised ghost in the society of people who are afraid of ghosts. I had once lived exactly as I now saw my friend living, perhaps without her sensation of alienation, sinse I had never belonged to anything to be alienated from. Now I have chosen to acknowledge and love my creator, and myself in the light of Jesus' love for me. And I do love my life. But for one day it seemed like maybe it would be easier, even better, if I had never learned of the greater life I am living now, that I might be happier if I chose to turn my back on the calling to a holy (which is to say 'set-apart for God' life that is constantly being offered to me. Perhaps it is simply because I was relaxing, having a few moments of rest from anything important or big, that I felt this way. For the first time in over a month I was really doing what God calls us to do every week, which is taking a day of rest. And the instant gratification of having no demands on my time was so glorious that I would have thrown out everything in my life that even seemed like a demand. Even as I was having these thoughts, God was about the process of wooing me all over again, causing the light to glean through the trees in just the right way to remind me that there is no greater beauty and joy than can be found in Him. The point of this blog is not to say that I have abandonned my christian faith for existential philosophy. Not even close. I guess the point is to say that I still, after seven years, and many trials, failures, and victories, have the capacity at any moment in time to doubt myself, and my decision to follow Christ. What surprised me about it is how much it shook me at the time. I guess I believed that my faith was above reproach, then found myself wondering if I really had what it took to live this life. Of course I don't but that's the miracle. I live it anyway. And what finally brought back the peace was advice from King David. He said in psalm 42 "Why are you so in despair, oh my soul? why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God for I will yet praise him for the help of my countenance. Therefore, while my enemies berail me, I will remember you from the land of the Jordan."
This verse tells us to remember God from better times. Is you soul disquieted? Take the time to remember a time when God was amazingly kind to you. That'll fix you right up, and bring hope back into whatever seems hopeless in your life. And furthermore, don't give up hope that you will once again praise God as you have done for the help that he gives.
I remembered God from the time he first revealed himself to me, and a thought came into my mind as I wrestled with my own existential angst. The thought was "where else am I going to go? Who else has the words of life?" And at that a peace came back to me. A smile spread across my face as I remembered that the God whom I had discovered years earlier was still the biggest and the best thing that had ever happened to me. I knew that in that very moment God had won me over again. He had wooed me with sunlight that had been ordained to shine there at that time thousands of years earlier, and through words written by King David about his own existential despair. In the end my existential crisis was just a blip on the map of my faith, but somehow I feel stronger for having gone through it, more hopeful that this whole incarnation thing is a good idea...man, it's a wonderful life. God Bless you friends.

directions to my place

2005-01-24T19:18:00.000-04:00

from Toronto head east on the 401. get in the middle lane of the express and don't change lanes until you reach Montreal. Take the 20 east in Montreal, and head towards Sherbrooke. Eventually you must get a map, because you must drive through some backwoods Quebec terrain. After Sherbrooke, take the 172? to the Maine USA border. In Maine you will be on highway 27. Don't stop at the White Wolf Restaurant in Stratton. Keep going till you get to Skowhegan. From there take the 201 to the
I-95. Ride the I-95 to Bangor, and exit at 4-b, heading towards highway 9. Highway nine east takes you right to the St. Stephen Border, and back into Canada. once you have been through customs, turn right onto Milltown Boulevard, and then turn left on Main Street. St. Stephen's University is the first building on the left on Main street. I work in there.
Now you all have directions as to how to find me. I will indeed cook for you, if you come. Salivators are exempted from this bargain, as I will be cooking for them in the summertime.
I made a nice chicken/salmon surprise for a number of students the other day, and they all talked and chit-chatted during hors d'ouvres, as friends will do, then were very quiet during the meal. This is a good sign that they enjoyed it. A quiet dinner table among friends means that your food has something special about it. So, be ye not of Montague, come and crush a cup of wine.

A time to cook, a time to clean

2005-01-17T19:26:00.000-04:00

Before a meal can be enjoyed, there are a number of necessary steps that must occur.
The most important of these is that food must be made available. Not only must it be made available, but it must be made availiable in a palatable form, which some of you may say stands to reason, if the stuff should be first considered food. The real joy for me comes in this stage. It's great to serve food to your friends, and have them enjoy it, and a good time is had by all. This is a nice sensation, but the precursor, the preparation is the best in my mind. I love to cut the what's-it, and season the other-thingy, and cook it all up, knowing that soon you will see that look on their faces as you present your culinary concoction that says "oh my, he really knows his way around a kitchen. Look at this stuff! What is this?" And then they bite in and all is calm and quiet for a moment. The cooking of the food, the preparation is just as good as the reaction, even a little better, I say. I love it. But what I find interesting is how, as a man who despises tidying up a mess, I can stomach it on those days when I have hosted a meal. The whole thing is so nice that even cleaning up afterwards takes on a small sense of joy all it's own. I can roll up my sleeves and wash the dishes, if I have just thoroughly enjoyed my meal. What I wonder about is how this principle avoids other areas of my life. In Music it is definately there. After a rockin' set, I don't mind tidying up the stage a bit. After bombing out, and sucking for half an hour, I want to take my bass and get the hell out of there. This seems to be the same princple. But there are some occassions when I wish I could be more enthusiastic about the drudgery. Cleaning my room: a boring chore, no matter how well I slept. Shovelling the snow: a nuisance no matter how much I enjoyed driving my car that day. Some things that are entirely necessary never seem enjoyable to me. I suspect that there is some way of seeing things that makes sense of this, and anyone who can make an honest suggestion is welcome to do so.
And if anyone wants to come over for a meal, I will happily cook for you.

I'm back now!! BRONKTH!!

2005-01-10T13:38:00.000-04:00

Well, it has been 33 days since my last blog, but I have finally figured out my blogging problems. Thank you to the lovely tech support at Blogger.com.
It has been a wild month, I have driven 4000km's, seen many strange and wonderful things, and many wonderful people. I have recorded an Album with a few friends, and we now exist as individuals, as well as a band called "Reluvnotion". The album will be out sometime in the spring. And now I have to find my way back into the daily grind of office work. I'll be honest with you, kind reader. I don't think humanity was created for this kind of work, and I will make no guarantees concerning how long I will continue. I shouldn't think it will be much longer after this school year, but I leave that in the hands of my very loving father, who really does take care of these things. A bigger, less enigmatic blog will come soon enough dear friends. I love ya'll.

sometimes blogging can be frustrating

2004-12-08T17:45:00.000-04:00

for some reason Blogspot has been only publishing my most current blog, and I have to go in and ask the website to republish my entire blog again in order for it to be viewable. Any advice anyone can give in this regard is welcom. (I'm thinking of you Jeremy)

Little black bull with a cute red bow

2004-12-07T20:05:00.000-04:00

Last April I graduated from University. I had worked hard, and earned a baccalaureate in Liberal Arts, focusing on Literature and History. It seems that along the was I earned a reputation as well. I have never been a man of few words. Even when I don't know what you're talking about I can usually find something to say. The truth is I usually do know at least a tiny bit about most subjects, but I like to sound like I know more. So I have been selected as the first ever President's Award winner for my graduating class. At the ceremony,m with friends and family gathered in support, the various academic awards were announced. Anna was the student who most successfully studied the most depressing material, so she won the Friedrich Nietzsche Award, with a plaque and a cheque. Jon had the highest grades in Philosophy and cultural studies, so he won the renaissance Man award, with a plaque and a cheque. Then came the important awards.Andrew Sutton was given the "Walter Thiessen 'the human mind can rationalize anything' psychology award: for holding the opinion that if he earned any mark lower than an 'A' it was because the professor didn't take the time to read it." He was given a plaque, and a box of fruit-loops. Then came the final, and most important award, the "President Bob Cheatley 'I've been to Ireland, so I know Blarney' Award: for outstanding ability to eloquently and persuasively talk himself and others into and out of any situation." I was awarded the honour of this great distinction, and received a plaque, and a little black toy bull, with a lovely ribbon. People cheered as I received the prize, and a few people made speeches recounting types of ways in which I had talked them into doing things that they would never have done. Mary Smith, a professor, recounted how I talked her into teaching a class on Pop-Culture. Jon Rinck recounted a story where I convinced him to have his first shot of Jagermeister in the University Chapel (Jon is not an alcoholic, but has discovered a love for having a glass of wine, which he would never have discovered had he not first tried alcohol). And a few others shared similar stories surrounding cliff diving, or dying their hair, or what-have-you. Basically, just by being myself I have influenced this place in many ways that I never imagined I would. I would encourage you, dear reader, dear friend, not to forget that people are following you, even if you are not aware of it. Peace!

Roll on, Silver moon

2004-11-22T12:22:00.000-04:00

This weekend SSU hosted it's second "SSU Celebrates the Arts" weekend performance art showcase. I was the Master of Ceremonies, as well as the closing act. I sang three songs about various stages of love. Infatuation style idealizing was in there, heart breaking "where did it all go wrong" type stuff, and a surprising amount of "I'll stay by you/when times get rough I will fight for you" music. I know that I have been turning corners in the area of love/trust. I have struggled with trusting God, and in turn loving God fully. I have been surprised by my own attitudes as of late, in that I have been more in love with God than I can ever remember, despite not having any sort of mind blowing experience of His goodness, or some unique kind of blessing. He has just been the focus of my love in a way that He never was before. I am starting to realize what a "captured heart" feels like. He has captured my attention through ordinary life. I never saw that coming. But think about it. Say, like, a young teen-aged boy is in the hall at school, no passion, no love for anything. Then the cute girl walks by, says hello, even sits down for a minute, then walks off to class. Suddenly BAM the boy has passion, desire, something to seek. How much more if the God who is love walks by.

If you ever drop your car keys into a river of molten lava, don't go after them. Trust me, they are gone.

2004-11-05T19:27:00.000-04:00

Andrew, I just read your "God with low standards" thing. Very nice. I think of Jesus' views concerning sin. Please allow me to paraphrase: The typical Hebrew way of thinking was "I shouldn't murder, and I haven't so I am good." Not having killed someone, they were outside the sphere of culpability for that sin. Then along comes a Pharisee who tells them, "No, if you have even thought of killing someone, that's bad, because God knows your thoughts!" The Pharisee re-drew the lines so that average people would be inside the sphere of who qualifies as a sinner, but he himself would still be outside it, setting up a holier-than-thou relationship. Then along comes Jesus who says "If you have been angry with someone this is the same sin as if you had murdered them." In other words, the sphere is even bigger, and we are ALL inside it. He has the lowest standards of them all, in this sense. He died for us while we were yet sinners. Amazing.

Still Swingin' (not like that Puddle!)

2004-11-04T13:45:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time there was a big God. One day that God decided to create a boy who was taller than most of the other boys. This made buying clothing and driving certain vehicles more difficult. But the big muscles that come with being tall and big made this boy a sledgehammer swinging machine. Then one day the boy got to put those skills to the test against a smaller, but crazier boy who had some pretty big muscles of his own. Tall was victorious, and the smaller boy grew a complex. He tried to strech his legs by riding motorcycles all day. He tried to stretch his spine by accelerating his car much too quickly, but he couldn't get taller.

God Bless you Steve.

Thank you God!!!

2004-10-29T13:03:00.000-03:00

I am home, and that is good. I have been on the road for 28 days, and I had good times, hard times, long times, mostly long in fact. The whole trip took way too long. I will likely never do that much at once again. But there were some amazing moments along the way.
For example, walking through the door into the Revelatory with Storm. Or hanging with Shazza for an evening. Or playing Fable with Pudduan. All good things.

I have come to a realization about the nature of our God. He is everywhere, He is ever here. I love ya'll who are reading this, and I am looking forward to the day when we can all be together again.

Till next publication,
Keep on Keepin' On