eclectic tomatoes

Poetry inspired by rainy days. Photos from here and there. Preaching about good music and bad theology (both in my opinion, of course). Turns out the purpose of this blog has outgrown its original hat: as an update about "the Vancouver chapter" of my life. Yeah, it's become a bit of a catch-all. A little scattered, perhaps. Lacking focus, maybe. Eclecticism might be prettier as a decorating style than a writing one. Eclectic is one of those words that is so satisfying to feel in your mouth. Like a particularly cripsy piece of tempura, or perfectly roasted nut.

I'm slowly inching my way toward writer-dom, with the excitement of the month being my first internship! As a writer, this is pretty big news. Cahoots Magazine is a Canadian women's magazine focussed on art, politics, and womens' issues. I'll be compiling events, dates, and news from women across the country for a calendar. Harper's here I come! (ha ha)

I don't have much to say tonight,
either than that I've been staying up far too late
ripping duct tape with my teeth to tie around cardboard boxes
of journals and essays, coin collections and stuffed sheep.

No, not so much to say, but the knowledge of an early morning arising
to meet me, where I will be living again between lives
on the periphery, where interstates meet fields of sunflowers
and I go to greet another home.

Tonight is silent, as the grass at midnight
as the tomatoes clutching the sun's old rays
turning them to red flesh.

Tonight holds the summer and all its warmth,
words, ashes, cut grass, distance
we travelled to meet the day we will call new.

the r-word again

The other night I was out for drinks, and someone said that they couldn't stand religious people. It never really became a serious conversation, and there were guffaws and light-heartedness. Still, my heart quickened and my blood seemed to thicken, a reaction common in me when met by attitudes that I strongly oppose. I felt the poles of passion and reason magnetize strongly. Of course I can deal with hearing things I don't agree with. Of course I can try to see the other person's perspective. But first I had to let that wave of instinctive anger sweep over me. Then I took my little teaspoon of anger, and tried to imagine how this person felt every time he was confronted with such "religiosity." And I was reminded of something.

Anger often surfaces as a reaction to injustice. That is why I think the first tremours of anger are good--they render us moral and alive. If it's been a long time since I got really angry, maybe I should be worried. So in a way, this person's anger was a wake-up call. Maybe it wasn't anger I felt at all. Maybe I understood exactly what he meant, and hated it too. Maybe I wanted to change his mind but knew what a feat that would be to even attempt. Maybe I just wanted him to meet one single solitary person who could move him an inch from his hatred.

All I could manage was a calm, "so how do you define 'religious?' " To which I didn't really get an answer. Then the conversation slipped away down the eavestroph of forgotten words, and something else replaced it. Religion says very little about God. Religions says more about us and our inadequacies. It is the way we reach towards something more beautiful and more true and we are. We can find God in it, but we must be very, very careful not to get in the way.

My fingers tingled and I longed to show him a glimpse of what it is like to be persued by God. My heart thudded and I feared all that conspires to try to show me the allure of running away.