One Uplifts the Other in Learning

Some of my favorite notions of friendship come from C.S. Lewis. Yeah, he's the one that wrote the recently-popularized Narnia books, which, up until Disney got ahold of them, were these secret chests of imagery I felt I was part of an elite few to know. When not writing books about children, Clive had some fascinatingly profound things to say:

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. . . It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival."

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, "What! You too? I thought I was the only one!"

This morning I got up to a rather normal day off in the life of Jen, which usually consists of a numerous amount of "you shoulds..." piling up at my feet. "You should" bike the trails at UBC. "You should" go running. "You should" finish that article for the heritage gardening site. "You should" go grab an americano at your favorite Vancouver coffee shop, and visit your friends there. And so I did.

There seems to be a trend developing. I almost have Fridays off, and I almost always venture down Commercial Drive for a coffee. Last week I started up a conversation about cameras with the man sitting next to me on the Turks patio. Turns out he's a freelance writer in from Japan, and he recommended a great writing website for me to check out. (Thanks, wherever you are!) Today, while waiting in line for Kyle's perfectly pulled espresso shot, I ran into Kat, from my salsa dancing classes back in December. She's a pretty cool cat, pardon the pun, and all you locals should check out her concert review blog. (Guess who just figured out the quick way of doing active links? Oh, me me!) I love days that surprise you. Days that make you say with conviction what I said over the counter moments prior: "Yeah, me and Life are getting along pretty well these days." The hours melted into hours, leaving coffee-stained rims on the metal table; and I was reminded by her of why I write, why I moved here, why I am happily unsettled right now, and of the sweetness of instant connection.

I don't know why I am so surprised when I meet people so much like me. I mean, there's only so many ways a person can be, right? They are infinite, yet limited. By processess of socialization or molding or whatever term you may give it, our "raw matter" is shaped into the creations we become. Meeting someone who is a lot like you--liking the colour green, with similar music tastes, reading the same book(s), a "dabbler" of the many rather than honer-of-the-few. . . can startle you into the notion that somewhere along the chain of each of your development something happened to produce these twin qualities. It's like looking into a semi-fogged mirror; certain things remain clear while others are completely blocked out, unknown, underexposed.

Our little table brought Brandy, Lara, and Jen over, (a girl I had Thanksgiving dinner with in October and haven't seen since!) and I was reminded by Lara how Lent can become just like Valentine's day, Christmas, and New Years. A time where we are sort-of "forced" to love, to give, to resolve. Shouldn't we be striving for these things at all times and in all places? Shouldn't we always be looking to rid ourselves of the trappings that hold us? So, as a result of this conversation, I've decided to do a week-by-week Lenten journey. Each week I'm going to give up something different. This way I will achieve a greater breadth of renunciation, a greater range of asceticism. (Extravagant of me, I know.) Starting today, it's no alcohol. (Strategically placed during the week before Mark comes. I like drinking beer with him. . . ) It won't really be that hard, but I'm sure there will be times I'll just have to be strong. Like this weekend, for example! We'll see what no no's next week brings. I'm open to suggestions, or if you want to live your giving-ups vicariously through me. (This could get dangerous!)

Tonight's Gathering meeting is on Time. I just finished listening to Dee Carstensen's Time in preparation. For those of you not familiar with her angelic harp-laced folk melodies, here's a snippet of the chorus: Time gets me wound up like a clock inside my head/Time gets me spinning my own wheat/and when I think that there ain't one more inch/this worn-out heart can give/Time's gonna teach me how to live/ Time gets you wound up like a clock inside your head/Time gets you spinning your own wheat/and while you're losing what you've found you're finding out that's what you need/Time's gonna teach you how it feels.

So back to the theme of friendship which I somehow lost along the way, I'll finish with an observation I wrote last Friday in my new Moleskin journal (the legendary journal of Hemingway, Chatwin, and Van Gogh . . .good omens, think I):

The concept of friendship is stil unbelievable to me. The miracle of progression from acquaintance to mutual enjoyment to die-hard loyalty leaves me breathless. Looking around at pairs of companions, I wonder about the time those two chattering mothers, pushing their strollers now on a sunny afternoon, had only a cursory knowledge of the other. There is a light that breaks through, exposing our cracks, when friendship is found. We cannot plan for it. We can scarcely name it. We do not know when it will drop down on us. All we can do is raise our hands to the sky--perhaps the most honest gesture towards the Divine we can manage--and say "thank you."

(Yeah, and picture is again taken from Jordan Bent. I just really really like him. Entitled One Uplifts the Other in Learning. Acrylic on canvas. Sweet.)

The Opposite of Hallelujah

Listening to: “The Opposite of Hallelujah.” Jens Lekman

I used to have a piece of calligraphy on my fridge, given to me by my friend Laura. It said "Enough is a Feast." It always made me stop and think before I opened the fridge. Well, usually anyway.

This quote came back to me yesterday, on the first day of Lent. This year was different than last, in many ways. For one, I spent Shrove Tuesday (the night before the season of Lent begins) as Mardi Gras this year. That’s French for “Fat Tuesday.” There were no St. Margaret’s pancakes for me this year. Instead, only some wobbly jello-shooters and cheesy decorations.

There’s something about nights of “forced partying” that really bug me. Of course, I often partake of New Years’ Eve festivities, birthdays, and other celebrations—they are part of our shared humanity. So I guess I’m torn on the issue. I’ve never really celebrated Mardi Gras until last year, where I flipped pancakes for about 2 hours, and then went out dancing at the Die Maschine (in Winnipeg) afterwards, reeking of grease. It was a strange experiencing both versions of the pre-Lenten festivities. The Church's and the culture's. In a basement in Wolseley there were a bunch of people chowing down on fat and carbs. Laughing and talking and joking. Later at the bar there were line-ups of people downing rums and whiskeys and ales, laughing and talking and dancing. They were both wonderful celebrations of being alive, but because we don't have to deal with scarcity, perhaps we can't possibly appreciate true abundance.

I didn’t start observing Lent until a few years ago. This was a gift later given to me by the Anglican tradition, my doorway into the widely-observed Church Year. Up until then, Easter would come upon us like a great storm, startling us like a loud clap of thunder, unintroduced. All of a sudden there would be food and lacy dresses and hats. Chocolate and hunts and bunnies and bustling grandmothers. It was all so wonderful and fresh, different than Christmas in its sunny promises, smelling of rich earth and lilies.

But what is feasting without fasting? What is celebration of life without the mourning of death? How can we know love without loneliness? Fullness without emptiness? The opposite of hallelujah is an interesting though. Thanks to Swedish musician Jens Lekman for that one.

I want to give something up this year. I really do. I have never done it successfully, and I believe it’s important to fully grasping the solemnity of the death of Christ. I mean, if we can’t take forty days out of our year to sit with the emptiness he felt in the dessert, the horrible paradox of his humanity and divinity, what does that say about us? If only to fully understand our own humanity, perhaps Lent can focus us away from the material by highlighting our very reliance on the material. We are both material and spiritual beings. We grasp at the things of this world-- carved in wood, etched in stone, housed in barrels--so that we can begin to seek out our own identities. We also cling to the non-material, relationships, memories, our ideas of self and God. And we do things like write and fling paint at canvas and run marathons and cook dinners, all in order to understand. To dream a little more of what it might mean to be human.

“We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason they write so very little.” –Anne Lamott.

I’ve been struggling with what to give up. What would have the most profound effect on me? I’ve heard of everything from chocolate to alcohol fasts, to “negative self-image” fasts. The problem is, I don’t know if anything’s really THAT important to me, enough so that I’d actually notice its absence. I could go 40 days without meat, no problem. Same with chocolate. The only item of consumption I can’t imagine living without is coffee. I guess that makes it the perfect candidate for a fast. I don’t like that string of logic very much at all.

It is amazing how quickly the excuses come flying in: “But coffee helps you write.” “It’s been given to us for our pleasure by God!” “Why deny what you love.” "Oh you're not really addicted to it." And on and on and on.

And so the battle of the flesh and spirit begins…

I’d be interested to hear how everyone out there is approaching the season of Lent. For those of you who never leave comments (which is pretty much everyone, and I know who you are!) it’s really very easy. But I won’t feel like less of a person if you don’t.

89 Days of Alcatraz

I am afraid to be alone sometimes, though without valid reason; I grasp for the tiny ledges of companionship that will keep me off the ground. I’d like just one more view of the night sky.

These pages slip between my fingers, fluttering in the wind, streaked with black ink. They are my second skin, bound to leather by string, fastening me tightly to the promise of words. My motivation for writing runs as clear as blood, but at least I know that words are my lifelines to the land of the living. When we can name we can create. Names become like cages for our ideas, because we are always trying to hold them for just a minute longer, begging them, please, not to grow up. Ideas, laughing like soft new babies. Unfinished and barely begun. Ideas open and bare and pink, without rows of teeth barring the world’s entry. Ideas not yet captured, ideas transparent as jars and holding silence.

“Hope is a revolutionary patience . . . so is being a writer.” I got this from Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. I’m only 20 pages in and because of it, my lust for words has already grown to ever more consuming proportions. There are words everywhere, running like black tar over city streets, making my front bicycle tire slip as I ride home at 2 am. Across the city I am towed and tossed, as if a sail were attached to me, a white canvas where words would lodge themselves, thrown from the sky: Recompense. Forgiveness. Salt. Wound.

Patience: Persistent, relentless, unwavering. And I wonder when Hope grew so tall. Hope, after all, always seemed so sunny, tasting faintly of orange sherbet on cool August nights. The sentence jumped out at me because I had, somehow corresponding with my quarter-century year, learned a much different Hope. I was only looking for its name: Hope a lot more like revolutionary patience. Hope like some kind of barnacled twine tying me to an iron post stationed at the end of a pier. Hope older and smelling of the sea, Hope darker and pleasantly bitter, like chocolate.

How does that cat know where she is at this hour? What is everyone doing, sleeping through this calm, missing the city’s most brilliant moments, choosing instead to awake to her most garish extravagances of day.

What's heavier, words or the things they name? (thanks to Malani for this tangent.)

Click on the picture for the source site.

Up up and away

Today is my brother’s birthday. I have noticed that birthdays have become less about gifts and celebrations, given that those closest to me are the ones furthest away. If I had rubber arms I would gather all of you to myself in one big greedy gesture. Like in that dream I have every year or so where everyone I have ever known and loved (or some combination of the two) comes together in the same place. It is a dream, I know, of heaven, of peace and of community. And a typical extrovert’s dream, perhaps.

Birthdays have become less about the advancing of years, or the achievement of a new set of arbitrary freedoms. Rather, I find that they have become more like days of honour. I wake, and the dawn rolls back to remind me of someone dear to me, past or present. I bring them closer, meditating on them, framing them with my thoughts, bending to kiss their foot like a devoted worshipper before a revered image. Too often this reverence doesn’t translate into phone calls, cards, or gifts, as it most ideally should. But it is any less generous? I am, of course, not trying to get out of gift-buying, for at its best it is one of the most tangible expressions of love. However, this shifted understanding of birthdays helps me understand something far more mystical, something I have chased all my life in varying states of confusion, frustration, and tedium: prayer.

When we honour the passing of a day of birth, we honour not a day nor a moment in history, but a person. When we hold that person in the front of our minds throughout an entire day, we are turning the self toward the other. Perhaps this simple turning is also the primary goal of prayer. When a person—their face, laugh, interests, presence—pervades our conscious life more consistently than in singular fleeting thoughts, is it as if the whole of our selfhood is consumed by them. They are there, in the spreading of honey on toast and in the selecting of oranges. They are there, in the donning of raincoats and rhythm of travel. They are there in the playing of music and the chattering of voices long into the evening.

I have learned and forgotten a lot about prayer. It has been a long time since I’ve knelt on a padded prayer rail, feeling the soft give of the leather under my knee, joining this age old communal and individual practice. I have tried to make substitutions for prayer, letting thoughts, intentions, and leanings stand in for the rigours of devotion. I have also been too hard on myself, deeming my prayer-life to be sub par when instead I just should’ve turned my attention to the new forms it had taken. There are many things that prayer is not. But perhaps there are many more things that it is, or that it can become.

I believe that the presence of God can be practiced in more ways than it can be denied. Can even the good and true actions and thoughts, on the part of those who don’t believe in God, proceed towards God? Does Christ thus re-route our misdirected thanksgivings and our most haphazard joys? Does true prayer happen even in the places we least expect it? Does it require conscious attention? Does prayer always and at all times have to be located only in the heart of believers?

And so my musings on birthdays have diverged into this new territory, where perhaps only the magic of dialogue can lead. And I see that there may be as many ways to pray as there are bones in the body; tendons to curl or to fold or to lay down before, and in holy submission to, our God.

"Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but is also their means of communication. It is the same with us and God. Every separation is a link." -Simone Weil.

Pictures: 1- Traditional prayer, 2- "Study for the garden court" by Sir Edward Burne-Jones (a poster I had in my room througout adolescence), 3-Tibetan prayer flags.

Nobody Knows How they are Loved

The florist shop across the street is stuffed with Valentines day leftovers. Pink and red balloons keep each other warm, crammed together under the dimmed display lights. Pink and red maintaining the closed shop’s cheery façade despite the fading light; pink and red spilling onto the grey sidewalks of Westcott Street. Just a few days ago that shop was bustling with last-minute lovers.

February, the month of love. The shortest month, too. As I look back over a life of February 14^th’s, I notice how this day presents us with a variety of options. We can abstain from this frivolous, needless consumer dictate altogether, we can choose more creative ways of expressing our affection, or we can buy into the "50 ways to Love your Lover" offered to us at every turn. I’ve hosted “platonic potlucks,” been out on hot dates, had Chinese food with my brother, and, of course, served countless couples champagne at countless restaurants!

Every time a holiday or other noteworthy day comes and goes, I think of how it is being experiencing so differently, simultaneously. In all the moments a February 14^th holds, there are a thousand or more stories lived, a thousand or more secrets revealed. These days mark the passage of time in a communal sense. We live through them together, almost as if they are social rites of passage, moments that tie us to each other in mutual agreement. It is when we feel most like hobos on parade, solitary wanderers through this alienating world, these days unite us. They give us common interests, and at the very least, topics for conversations (and blog posts)! In certain cases, like Christmas and Easter, they connect us to the people and the traditions that have made it possible for us to learn this thing called faith.

Valentine's Day serves a variety of social functions, albeit less noble ones. There are as many reactions to February 14^th as there are people. Unfortunately for some, (like the woman we witnessed screaming across the airwaves on her cell phone), the day is a downer. For others, like the couple on the couch across from us at “Awful Al’s Cigar Lounge,” the day is a playground for public affection. And there are hundreds of Valentines Day experiences that fall somewhere in between these extremes. For those lucky enough to tumble into Valentines Day shortly after tumbling into a relationship, the day is but an insignificant blip on the screen of new love—merely one more day amongst the unfolding bliss. In this context, the lovers can do no wrong--a knowing glance slipped across the dinner table is as passionate as the perfect kiss, and a few moments in the presence of the beloved are worth boxes full of chocolate and fingers full of diamonds.

Then there is the next level: V-Day as filter. I’ve noticed that in more settled relationships, the 14th serves as a catalyst for the “fight or flight” reaction. When a couple’s first Valentines Day rolls around, say, a few months after being together, the l0ve-sensors seem especially sensitive. I’m sure many a well-intentioned man is dumped for not coming up with spectacular ways to wow their women on this particular day in mid-February. Valentines Day here is like a test one must pass in order to proceed to the next level. And this is where the card shops kick in, serving as Band Aids and cupid-godmothers for failed and failing lovers.

There are Valentines Days spent indulging chocolate addictions and lonely hearts with single friends, there are sympathy dates and blind dates. There are men sitting alone in neighbourhood bars, there are gentle bartenders pouring the healing wine. There are tears in the eyes of eight-year-olds when their bakers-clay Valentines break in their bag on the way to school, there are hopes and dreams locked behind the doors of closed florist shops, there are curses broken by a voice you wished you’d heard much sooner. There is the 28^th card and 378^th rose sitting on the kitchen table. There is the David Gray song playing on the radio: “This year’s love had better last.” There are spells cast by eyes reflecting all the good in you. And there are a hundred more besides, a hundred versions of love on the day all lovers wait for in hopes of feeling the ball in their chests pump just a little faster.

The Innocence Mission’s song “When Mac was Swimming” is a song about a family preparing a birthday party for their little boy, who is oblivious to the goings-on around him. There is a line in it that has struck me over and over again: “Nobody knows how they are loved.” Maybe there are things going on around us, above us, inside of us, that we haven’t named as love, just yet.

Credits:
Thanks to singer-songwriter Shannon Wright for the phrase “hobos on parade."

Thanks to Mark for the picture. And for other things, far too numerous to mention on this blog.

Born of dirt and laced with starlight

I came across this site quite by accident. 5 minutes later and I had done the quiz too, perhaps out of my love for satire and irony. I can just see this sort of thing parodied in The Wittenburg Door or something of equal mockery value. So now here it is, folks, everything you've always wanted to know about my forays into the forbidden land: my ranking on the seven-deadly-sin-o-meter, published on-line for all to see! The modern-day confession, writ large in html! (Jen crosses her fingers, hoping that such a candid confession will cancel out some of the said pride.) Seventeen magazine ("Are YOU a good flirt? Take our quiz!!) meets fear of eternal damnation. Ridiculous. If Christians are running this site, Lord help us all.

Greed:	Very Low
Gluttony:	Very Low
Wrath:	Low
Sloth:	Very Low
Envy:	Medium
Lust:	Medium
Pride:	High

I'm not sure how such results were generated from questions like "What kind of car do you drive?" but apparently these things are important. (Maybe they just give "pride" out, as a default, to all the people who are just too good to accumulated high rankings in the other six. Since we're so perfect, we must be proud! Ha.)

This quiz has indirectly reminded me of one thing I despise: the scare-them-into-salvation tactic. There are people out there who think that fear is a legitimate way of introducing people to the ravishing freedom and extravagant beauty of God's kingdom. That, to me, would be like taking a child to the ocean blindfolded, or quenching his thirst with wine. The medium does not suit the message. The good is spoiled by that which he has not developed a taste (understanding) for. God seduces us with beauty and goodness and truth, and we Christians--said to be his likeness!
--come up with sin-o-meters and hell's flames plays! Like lego skyscrapers in the shadows of towering mountains, so are our plastic, tottering salvation-games. Should not God be the one who draws the soul forward?

The problem with pride though is that it goes in socked feet. It sneaks up quietly, and by a thousand new names. Even writing this is a prideful act, as I name what I believe to be "right" about my particular view, and in naming what I believe to be "wrong" about another. This is why I have such a great need for God's grace: because as soon as I begin to speak, I am already making myself into a little god. And so this silly little quiz makes me smile, because I know that the longer the bar is on that graph, the further God's arm reaches out towards me. And the further that reach extends, the smaller I shall become. And sometimes I am glad to be small. Small, said E.F. Schumacher, is beautiful.

I like the concept of humility the Bible introduces, as a counter to our obsessive, hamster-wheel attempts to run from pride. Paul says "think of yourselves with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you." For me this means knowing and sharing myself: my gifts as well as my weaknesses. The dance of celebration and vulnerability. Sober judgment is a balancing act indeed, impossible "under the influence," so to speak, of pride. When we try to outshine others, we all just end up brown and withered from the excessive heat. When we hide beneath the covers of our fear, the world shivers without the touch of our hand.

Humility, hummus, human. Sharing the same root word for, you got it, dirt. Humility is a call to turn our poised and pious gaze back to the stuff beneath our feet, and to those rooted there--in the matted leaves, dried up tears, and withered moth wings. Being humbled is to be reminded of the dust drifting through my veins like sediment in a restless river. It is to return momentarily to the myth of my genesis, be it by the rib, the tadpole, or the exploding star.
Your thoughts are most welcome.

(and if you're really really bored, take the Seven Deadly Sins Quiz)

Forced into a silly game...

Like those old email forwards we all pretended to hate when we were teenagers, but we really loved because they gave us even more reasons to be self-obsessed, Mark has forced me into this "4 meme." (see his tag here ). Rookie technocrat that I am, I have no idea what this term even means; all I know is that it is taking up room on my blog.

Four jobs I've had:
1) "If you practice ten times this week I'll give you only 2 songs to learn..." (piano teacher)
2) "Yes, we all live here, yup, it is kind of like a commune, yes, on site, no, I don't really get bored...see, there's a lot of mountains around, yeah, I'm from Manitoba, yeah, that's in the middle of Canada..." (server at Num-ti-Jah Lodge, Alberta)
3) "No, these sandals aren't particularly good for ankle-support." (MEC)
4) "WOW, compost actually makes dirt! " (community garderner/green team)

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1) Amelie (for the playfulness)
2) Before Sunset (for the dialogue)
3) Contact (for the themes)
4) Baraka (for the cinematography)

Four of my favorite foods:
1) ants on a log
2) baklava
3) calamata olives
4) the legendary Ward family googly buns



Four places I have lived:
1) Allada, Benin
2) Gimli, MB
3) Bow Lake, AB (see pic)
4) Winnipeg, MB

Four places I've been on vacation:
1) Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands
2) Montreal
3) Yellowstone National Park
4) between the pages of countless books...

Four of my favorite drinks: (there are many more)
1) "Red Red Wine, stay close to me" (preferrably of the shiraz-cab designation, but I'm warming up to Pinot)
2) Bailey's and hot water (first drank it after returning from a backpacking trip SOAKING wet)
3) "Boiled shoe tea" (aka: Lapsang Souchong)
4) Kathleen's special "porch coffee" : )

Four songs that move me:
1) Acid - Emm Gryner
2) Suitcase - Over the Rhine
3) Messages - Xavier Rudd
4) Wise Up - Aimee Mann

Four places where I've found myself:
1) Molar Pass, Alberta
2) Nutimik Lake, Manitoba
3) St. Margaret's Anglican Church, Winnipeg, MB
4) Vancouver, BC

Four things I've imagined myself doing:
1) teaching English Literature
2) co-running a rehabilitation/retreat center organic farm
3) being a yoga instructor
4) opening my own cafe

Four people I am tagging:
1) Malani
2) Matt
3) Marla
4) Adam (someone withOUT an "M" name!)

And now for something a little lighter

Because my last few posts were perhaps a little overly erudite (hence one response from my Dad: "I need a translator to even understand your blog! Me--a baby boomer--has trouble grasping the concepts of you genXers!" ) . . . I decided to relieve you, the faithful readers (or "absorbers," as my good friend David put it) of my "electronic journal." I'm so incredibly sick of the word bl-g, by the way. Which is what my last post began as a response to, before it plummeted into the depths of media criticism.

Because I am also addicted to this site called the the Daily Mumps, which I discovered through Mark's Magnificent Page, I figured I've try my hand at some sarcasm. But maybe sarcasm isn't really effective if you pre-empt it like that. Oh well. Too late now. So, following in the witty style of the creator of that website, I've put together some captions for pictures I had just kickin' around. Enjoy!

After decades of bitter and rancorous sibling rivalry, Jennifer and Matthew--although it took every last inch of their self-restraint--decided to share the last piece of sushi. It was a brave, though last-ditch attempt, at familial peace.


With the recent demise of their father's entrepreneurial ventures, the kids thought they should start pulling their weight around the house. The new tv series Falcon Beach may not have been their idea of good art, but it was a fine place to carve out a lucrative acting career.

High on the treacherous Himalayan peaks, they had found the last surviving member of the long-extinct animal family. Now the only task that remained was transporting it back to camp where they could begin re-populating Earth with its former feathered creatures. It would be no small task, but they owed it to the world.

After getting over the initial loss of life on planet Earth, Jen and Mark embraced the possibilities of their new cube on Mars. Now the only trick was getting all that Ikea stuff to fit...

No really darlin', everythin's faaahne, I know exactly where the cows are...uh huh...now jes' pass me the whuskey dee-ar, come on, just hand it on over...

While the blissful, newly-engaged couple smiled for the camera, the hot air balloon attendant prepared himself for the worst.

Thhhhhhhhhhhhhat's all folks!

"Msg. in a bttl." : from Shorthand to Quicksand

In all my recent thinking about technology's pathetic aesthetics (ha ha), I come across this article by Simon Dimenco. I like his call-it-like-it-is analysis of my (relatively new) discovery of "journaling in the commons;" aka: blogging. Thanks to everyone who has emailed me and let me know in person that they have enjoyed my blog: You know who you are!

Here is an excerpt from the essay:

"And it occurred to me that there is no such thing as blogging. There is no such thing as a blogger. Blogging is just writing -- writing using a particularly efficient type of publishing technology. Even though I tend to first use Microsoft Word on the way to being published, I am not, say, a Worder or Wordder. It’s just software, people! The underlying creative/media function remains exactly the same."

This makes sense to me. Media is simply the way we house our experience. We bring life to our ideas through words, that is how language functions, by defining the realm of sharing. Words enjoy the great priviledge of holding our ideas, of storing, as if in antique iron clasped jam-jars, the colourful and rich and fermenting conconctions of the years. So then does it matter how it is shared? This is something I think about a lot. How is the content of our speech affected through the different ways we choose to convey it? Which is of greater value: the message in a bottle, yellowed with sun and seawater, or the "cu2nite" I scan on my phone while shopping for potluck goodies? The above quote seems to suggest that the two are equal; at the very least it hints at the neutrality of media. It doesn't matter then how one goes about disseminating information, whether at the public square, as did Jesus and the Apostle Paul, or via this new "virtual" commons, as does Gordon Atkinson. It seems to say that the meat of the message is not in the vehicle used to bring it to life (the medium). It seems to say that technology in the form of publishing programs and software is only the great beast we ride into victory, neither to hasten nor impede.

Then again, sometimes I agree with Marshall McLuhan, that the medium IS the message itself, not just its temporary skin. Sometimes the manner in which I receive information, or love, or friendship, or counsel, actually matters. Go figure. I could learn that over the counter sipping tea with my roommate, or I could learn it from Oprah. Maybe it doesn't matter. Then again, maybe it does. But I'm not the only one asking these questions, am I?

I don't have the answers to this dilemma, hence the continued posting. I have this love-hate relationship with technology: long-sensitized to the innovations of the past (which were at the time of their introduction, equally jarring), but resisting those of the future. It's hypocrisy. If I can accept knives and bowls and pen, then I can accept iPods and Blackberries. Moreover, advancements in electronic media have made many things possible in my life: they have allowed me to maintain friendships, cultivate new ones, and discover things that I never would have otherwise come across. There are flip-sides to these perks however, dark sides if you will: have my real friendships of yesterday faded into false pursuit? Have we built simulations of communities to somehow combat our isolation from one another? Have we grown so bored with the journey of seeking that we've become ravenous for more and more and more? What has happened to the notion of too much information?

It's easy to say "it's not the tools themselves it's how you use them." But I often wonder if that's too optimistic a position, given our depravity. How have we used guns and steel? Not for any coffeetables I've seen. But the only alternative is rather pessimistic, that we are clay in the hands of our own creations. I don't know which I prefer. Even as I write this, I can see my own naivete glaring back at me like this lifeless computer screen. I wonder how this would've come out different in my little beat-up journal . . .

This post was my Frankenstein. Ahhhhhhhhhhh, he's chasing me down!

I'm going Hunting

I wonder, was Gutenberg hated by traditionalists like some neo-luddites loathe the guys at Google? The media we consume is changing, in micro movements and in great bounds. I'm not sure how these changes are changing us, but I'm confident that they are to some degree.

I turn from my computer screen to a book, and its dry and slippery pages are suddenly and inexplicably pure betweeen my fingers. This thing in my hands was once a voice across the fire, maybe a soft hand on my head as I courted sleep. The light of the screen accosts my eyes. The barrage of information is laid out before me: stripped naked, and we've barely met. I did not work for this. I did not earn this. I did not find this. Yet here it is: what does it ask of me? Why am I so numb?

In a recent Details interview, Bjork (the Islandic recording artist) declared that she found nothing so "organic" an experience than sitting in the woods compsing music on her laptop. I admired her ability to synthesize the natural and the invention. The idea of the machine as powerless but for our touch, is liberating.

Still, for some reason it is only when I read or hear information that I feel I have truly gleaned it. Cultivated and shucked like corn for a feast. Pulled like bright carrots from the dark earth. When the Internet is my guide, I feel as though I have only absorbed such knowledge. Passivity, caught, as if in a deluge, chased by an encroaching tide, hunted. Am I one of the last children of books? Am I pushing against the gales of electronic media, or being refreshed by the foretastes of freedom it carries?

"If travel is searching / and home what's been found / I'm not stopping / I'm going hunting / I'm the hunter / I'll bring back the goods / but i don't know when." -Bjork-

I remember a time

Why my mouth so dry
when outside the world so drenched with falling dew,
the sky has stolen something?
Lifted it off my tongue--
Giving back to the grieving earth.

From where does this sunlight in my body come
when that ball of fire beyond my reach,
warms the another distant part of the world?
Pouring through me, mis-matched to time--
Undercurrent of my bones.

I remember a time when I looked out of these eyes, when they were windows to the world, draped with lace and flowers and so unaware of themselves. Lately it seems they’ve become like little doors, tunnels to inner catacombs. Doors with heavy brass bolts and cryptic symbols etched into dense aged oak. Clandestine and alluring. Lately it seems as if I’ve been looking at my eyes, rather than through them—like I’ve gained a second set that stare and stare and stare right back: the meta-gaze. The gaze at a gaze. Socrates said “the unexamined life in not worth living:” an adage that juts out from the hats I wear like a peacock feather. A justification of what I call self analysis and others in my life have called over analysis. Maybe we could just call it knowing.

I remember a time when days and years and people just spilled out before me, like some kind of undeserved boon. A time when I didn’t both with the word “this year will…” when the calendar turned, too busy banging pots and pans with my brothers in the front yard. A glorious, purposeless activity that way just noise for noises’ sake: L’art pour l’art; art for art’s sake, that benchmark intellectual movement of the 19th Century.

I remember a time when questions were my soil, growing wild and ravenous blooms of scepticism. They’re still there I think, those deep forests, those dry deserts, only growing smaller and harder to reach. How do I get there--is it the yellow ring or the green? Yes, those questions are quieter now.

I remember a time when I didn’t think about age. Is it possible that as we accumulate years and experience, freckles and scars, that we actually move closer to truth? Is it possible that death will reunify us with our Creator and we will find ourselves created once again? Life would then be less like a line or an arrow, and more like a course; moving us closer to the moment of true birth. The more I think about it, the more I realize that death is a farce. Much more a beginning than an end. If we could only see beyond this (achingly beautiful) cardboard world.

Do I remember a time when there was no Time at all?

(Please see Scott Mutter's "Church Aisle" photo montage in a larger format.)

Arching towards Bethlehem

Mood: Dreamy
Listening to: Say Yes! to Michigan--Sufjan Stevens

For those of you who aren't familiar with WB Yeats, my title is a referance to his famous poem, The Second Coming." What is it about the closing lines that stick with me: "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" Only a handful of poets can manage such epic resonance, echoing like a gong for decades or centuries after pen hits paper. Yeats shows us a God who is so large, such a massive collection of beauty, truth and goodness that the moment of incarnation is like the rolling-up of a carpet, the collapsing of an easel, the huncing-down of a great giant. This is no distant and insatiable deity, this is one who, at the moment of Christ, spreads his arms wide and draws them in, curves his back like a cat, and collapses into an impossible smallness. A changeable God--poured into the feeding trough of farm animals--like some cosmic game of hide-and-seek.

So why "Arching?" Being a Sagittarius on the Astrological charts, I thought it a fitting Yeatsian play. Not that I'm about to be incarnated or anything, but I fancy the image of aiming towards re-creation, purposefully and skillfully. Life is not one birth but many. And because I orient myself around that little cradle, tucked away in some negligible corner of the world, births have become a guiding trope for me.

Almost everyone knows where they fall under the stars, whether they place a lot of significance in it or only a few skeptical grains. Every morning at the coffee shop we read our hororscopes to each other. I've always positionned myself at the edge of these types of things, not sure where exactly to stand, not sure precisely what to think. The zodiac, after all, usually made its way into the "be careful of" lists of my youth--along with ouiji boards and fortune-tellers. It was always a tamer one though; perhaps its roots in Greek mythology lent it some kind of credibility. I've always liked my sign: adventurous, creative, philosophical, ardent, jovial, frivolous. I have nothing against looking upward to seek understanding. I have nothing against looking for patterns to existence. I also have nothing against those far-off firey orbs having something more to say to us than "gosh aren't they pretty," or providing a backdrop for first kisses and pacts of friendship. The randomness that sometimes topples my sense of well-being is countered by the idea that above me there might be a wild order and symmetry. That on the day of my birth there might have been a Centaur shooting his arrow across the canopy above me; shooting his small arrows towards perpetual re-birth.

We could probably find something true about ourselves in every astrological sign. When you're looking hard enough for yourself, you're more apt to find pieces everywhere. The other day one of our regulars, waiting patiently as I timed his espresso shot out to a perfect 25 seconds, asked me when my birthday was. From the numbers I gave him, he formulated a quick map of my life: my strengths and weaknesses, how others see me, what types of work I would be well-suited to. I may have raised my eyebrows briefly, sending him off into his day well-caffeinated and conversationally stimulated, but I didn't pay much heed to his theories. What is the merit in these things? How much stock should we put in them? I do believe some people are gifted in seeing beyond the scratched surface of reality, and I did find something strangely comforting in his words. Is it merely that our exchange went beyond that of normal acquaintances, that there was a rickety bridge built across the vast canyon that separates two human personalities?

Life is chasing the little clues written on yellowing papers, scattered throughout the world: tucked in mountain crevasses, floating on oceans, twirling in desert winds. Clues to find and cherish, to read and share, to question and to doubt. I'm not one to live blindly by any book; I'm one to live with eyes wide open.

Gadget legs and empty stomachs

Listening to: Where Cedar Nouns and Adverbs Walk--the Most Serene Republic
Mood: Excitedly Undefined

Books smile at me from various corners of my apartment. I just finished one--Moon Palace by Paul Auster and was consistently pleased. It was one of those books that you keep looking at, even when you've finished it. One of those packages of pages and words that will sit beside you on the couch and lure you back to it. One of those literary treasures that you flip through with nostalgia after reading, hoping that the words might lift off the page and pull you towards them once again.

“I was buoyant in my solitude.” Just like that, such a simple line, and such a host of associations. A tiny ship on an expanse of water: pure freedom and fearful unfetteredness, together in an single image. I too have felt this buoyancy. Stepping on planes, reaching a decision, starting something new. Rainer Maria Rilke, one of my favorite poets, says that it is a tremendous violence to begin anything. I would have thought it a birth, but even in birth there is blood, there is agony, there are cries. Beginings are great, loud cries in the smooth quiet of daily life. Wherever we are in life, in age, circumstance, or locale, beginnings present themselves, begging us for the courage to fight them. What shall we become if we cease to create?

The seagulls are ecstatic outside my window. If only it was for the sea, and not for dismal dumpster treasures. Now crows have joined them, perched on the telephone wires, black chess pieces to their white. Will they all fight together, or pick sides, sharing a piece of break amongst their own kind? I can't see their battleground; from my position on the couch I can only see the sky.

I think I live with one foot in every place I love. But God knows I only have two. Go-go gadget legs...

If God is telling me anything at all these days I'd think it would be to write. There are times when the character of our thought can tell us more than existence itself. Those recurring images, dreams, coincidences, and descriptive digressions. The world pours itself through my pen, performs the daily ritual of turning itself to ink, performing the alchemy of adverbs. But every writer knows that inspiration always comes when there's no magical pen in sight. When you're cutting a grapefruit on the counter and your mind is multiplying thoughts, attaching and attaching like all those little pockets of sticky, sour joice that make up the yellow globe in your hand. "Just focus on the grapefruit," I say, as if reciting a chant. The tasks of a day are just tunnels into another realm, where words and ideas swing back and forth on translucent tree trunks. I like the fruits I have to work for. Pomegranates. Mangoes. Grapefruits. Never with the "Here I am!" of apples, or the conveniency of grapes. Inside their flesh a thousand little mysteries.

I have been attending this bi-weekly event called Gathering with a friend. Aside from the fear of organized transparency that could plague any less-public newcomer, these evenings have been life-giving for me. The theme of our discussion last time I attended was "mindful consumption," a topic that revolved around food, but spanned into other areas of life as well. One woman spoke about a group excercise she'd participated in once, regarding an orange. They were to explain its textures and attributes for over an hour, slowly engaging all the senses around this single object of nourishment. The image was beautiful; she said it forever changed the way she eats oranges. For the past two days my roomate and I set out on a bit of a cleanse, attempting a whole week of eating only cabbage soup and various other vegetal bounties. Our organized effort towards not only a healthy new year, but a crash course in self-discipline. I wanted to remind myself to eat slowly and deliberately, to watch my body and mind respond to a different energy intake. At the end of the second day,in a state of tottering haziness, we decided it was no longer healthy. (Sometimes I can be so all or nothing.) Those two days of light-headed, internal purity taught me the difference between hunger and desire, among other things. Namely, that Gandhi I am not. When your transportation is located in the strength of your legs, fruits and vegetables don't really go the distance. Moderation may be a higher virtue than extremism. Mission: aborted.

Getting our bearings

Last night I was reminded of one of the truest reasons for friendship: the importance of staying connected to the people who know us so well that they can spot even the most minute changes in our being. True friends are not merely ours to adore, and to adore us in return; they are those people in our lives who are granted the rare and joyful priviledge of calling us back to ourselves, over and over and over again.

From snow to salty sea

A New Year. It always seems arbitrary to me, that nothing will change from the 31st to the 1st. Numbers on these expanses of time we call "days." Still I can't shake the feeling of promise that hit me as I toasted my glass of champagne.

After work today I biked the seawall, a 2-and-a-half-hour excursion around Vancouver's salt-soaked edges. Everytime I do this, I wonder why I don't do it more than I do. We all have these thoughts: why don't I spend more time alone? why don't I see that friend more often? why don't I read more poetry outloud? why don't I do those things I know bring me life but too often forget? I guess there's only so much time.

Christmas in Winnipeg was a full of friends and family, a smoky little cabin in the woods, late nights on snowy streets, the Nutcracker, and Wolseley watering holes. Perhaps the gem in it all was an unexpected connection with someone from my distant past. It is good to be back here though, surrounded by space and possibility. I forgot how beautiful this city is, and while I am tired of some things about it, I am not yet tired of exploring it.

Tonight as the sun set over English Bay it left a pink wake across the cloudy sky. The water was mercury-coloured, shimmering to sleep. On one of the beaches a man was sitting on a piece of driftwood with his bike next to him. Both were merely black outlines, detail hidden in the fading twilight, leaving only the shape of companionship in solitude; man and machine, wheels and a pulsing heart, a picture of perfect competence and subtle strength.

Reminders of faithfulness

Hello to my few and faithful blog readers. I came across this piece on my friend Ben's blog, delighted to find that I had wormed my way into my friend from Idaho's internet maunderings. Read his post entitled "Artistic Liberties," a piece about an adventure taken in the fall of 2000, when we were younger, more adventurous, and for the first time, very far away from home.

Everyone needs a happy-list

What does it mean to be on my way "home?" I think my upcoming visit to Winnipeg will tell me a lot about this feeling. Or is it a truth? Indeed homefulness has inspired many an adage, truism, proverb: It's where the heart is. You take it with you. It's where you decide to be. I have learned many of these things for myself, that there is a home in every place, every thing, every idea, and every person I've ever loved. If I live a life of movement through the vistas surrounding me, whether by choice or circumstance, I will have to leave home many more times. I will have to close more doors, I will have to accomodate homelessness, I will have to part with more mugs, picture frames and potted plants. I would rather this perpetual loss than utter isolation, insulation, the locked door of the heart.

Last weekend I was putting eggs florentine in front of my favorite regulars, a gregarious couple, also Vancouver transplants. Robert remarked to me: When you come back to Vancouver for the first time it will then begin to feel like home." I wonder if home is about returning--that sense of the familiar that you begin to hone--about imbedding yourself into a place.

I just finished attending a class on biblical "re-readings" with a Regent College professor, Dave Diewert. The other day, after finishing up my 5am shift at JJ Bean, I grabbed my book and found a cozy corner of the cafe. Dave came in shortly after, and close by, sipping his coffee. It's so easy to ignore people you recognize, laziness the best excuse for not introducing yourself, choosing private comfort over connection. I was glad that I said hello. We sat and chatted for awhile, and many of his own words could've come out of my mouth: "Sometimes when you move from something instead of into something you find yourself asking 'what am I doing here?' " I have asked myself that many times. But then again, the way I understand my surroundings changes every day. So reason isn't really a reliable guide. But then again, neither are feelings. So instead, I am left with placing my trust in the mysterious marriage of the two.

I remarked at how in a city as transient as this one, connection is elusive. The ties that bind us are much more tenuous. How does community happen among exiles and runaways? The modern city: a yawning mouth catching so many errant flies. (see artwork--Jordan Bent--Vancouver artist discovered at November's red-letter Eastside Culture Crawl). When I was twenty years old someone spoke words to me that still reverberate: "The tensions of home and away will be with you your entire life." Yes, the Christian life has its prophecies, divinings, palm-readings of a sort.

The other day at work I was talking with a friend about dreams, and the untapped knowledge latent in them. I was marveling at how much of our life we spend asleep, and I said "we're only really alive for like 45 years! That's scary!" But you're not dead when you're sleeping, she replied. So we're only conscious for half our life. I think of how quick God's people were, in the ancient times, to see a divine hand in their dreams. I think about how science, psycology, pop self-help theories, have co-opted God's canvases for their own mediums. Have arenas where God once played, spoke, danced with us, been stolen for other means?

The sense of freedom I feel right now is tantamount to the options at hand. I heard something in a sermon once, something about how the amount of options available is inverseley proportional to human choice. Translation: the more possibilities, the less actual freedom. It sounds backwards, but the truth is that your choice will end up being more random. If I stand in a bike shop looking out over a potential 1000, my choice will be random. If I stand in front of 4, my decision will be both more informed, and more intimate.

Speaking of bikes, I've finally acquired a "new" one. It's an old Nishiki hybrid. It feels so good to be hybrid myself, again. Adding a genius of a machine to the strength of my body, two efficient wheels to these sticks of legs. To feel the curves and contours of the land underneath me as I circle the sparkling city at 2 am. I feel invincible on a bike. As my bitterness at property crime wanes, I can finally hope that whoever is riding my former two bikes is as happy as I am. And that I am smarter for it.

Everyone needs a happy-list. One to keep around for those days when the soul gets dreary, when a cup of tea isn't enought and friends seem far away. One to remind you of what life is about. I started one once, but I've forgotten where it went. Last Sunday I was perfectly content and begun another in my head: Farmer's markets in December/soup on the stove made from what you already have in the cupboard/an indulgent bath after a run/the smell of lavender/Yo Yo Ma on the stereo/a visit home just around the corner/a new Jean-Pierre Jeunet movie to watch from Marla/dark chocolate in the drawer/three new messages on the phone/a clean bathroom and freshly-done laundry/the smell of beeswax/lapsang souchong tea steaming beside me/moving impossibly slowly.

Current musical obsessions: Over the Rhine and the Innocence Mission. Current favorite lyric: "I'm a mirror, you're a mirror too." (by The Super Furry Animals)

Good thing these blog entried aren't essays, because I definitely do not stick to a thesis! Rather, this is a place to try ideas. Please leave comments on anything I've said, I really value them!

On Advent and Vancouver's first snow

This shot was taken in August, during a backpacking trip in the Skoki Valley with Adam. I've posted it here to commemorate snowy days long past for me now, here in temperate Vancouver. It is strange how the last time I saw real snow was in August. Really though, snow is a gift. (This goes out to all you Winnipeggers, slipping and sliding on the stuff, cursing your way over icy sidewalks or into frozen keyholes.) Snow is the cheeriest member of the precipitation family. Rain--the melancholic teenager, sleet--the attention starved sibling. Snow is slow and unassuming. I love those fat and healthy flakes, floating towards my tongue under the glow of street lights suddenly made magical. One of snow's best voices is in its delightful squeak, underneath your sled, your tire, your heel. I will miss the presence of snow this winter, even though Winnipeg will grant me a few days' jaunt in my winter play clothes. Still, a mere flirtation with winter will be a pronounced change from a former long-term relationship. Today it snowed in Vancouver. Coincidentally, I also sipped my first eggnog latte, at Starbucks (cringe), where I probably paid as much for one steaming mug of nostalgia as a whole carton would've cost me. (While fighting off a sinking sensation of guilt at my pre "Nog's Eve" indulgence!) In my analysis, this pathetic version of Snow does not really deserve its namesake, for it didn't even care to stick around long enough to even be heralded as such. Nope, off it went, melting into the (still green) grass, the pavement, our jackets, anywhere that would conceal its true identity. Cowardly stuff. Snow can't handle this city, and this city can't handle snow. Nevertheless, it provided a nice dose of Christmasy coziness for me, now that November's embers are cooling into winter's bleakness. First Advent is passed and we are summoned to a time of Waiting, Expectancy, Hope. I have been recently invited to think of the bodily posture of expectancy, and to translate it to my spirit, as I wait for the Kingdom of Heaven to be founded upon this earth. What does that actually mean? I look at the people around me at the bus stops I've been frequenting since my beloved bike (#2) was snatched from my embrace last week. Eyebrows raised, body leaned forward, gaze looking out and over the distant horizon. What would it mean to live through the Advent season in this manner, with this kind of expectancy, as we beckon "Come, Lord Jesus, Come."

Taking a day to remember

So, it's Remembrance Day. I think that is probably the most beautiful-sounding holiday out there, just rolling off the tongue. That this day has been designated for remembering is something I am grateful for, but this year I notice that it too is becoming stained by commerce and the drive to consume. Even our most solemn holidays are being shaped by the impulse to keep moving. To keep busy. To get things done. What am I supposed to do, stay home and make soup? Knit? Think about war or some other depressing event?

I am a case in point. I went out for brunch this morning with friends, as if it were any other long weekend. Mind you, I did expect the city to be shut down, so out I went, tesing it: If I will go, will they open for me? Of course. Take my money. This is business.

Yesterday at work a few of us talked about how we'd spent various recent November Elevenths. To my chagrin, I couldn't remember. When I was young we'd have assemblies and afternoons off. We'd spend the week previous writing awkward poems in hopes of being picked to read aloud in the echoing gymnasium--smelling of rubber and basketballs and play. Every year the same man would come in and play the same haunting song on the trumpet. The one with that part that makes every elementary child's heart leap up for the first time in some sort of empty patriotic impulse. The song that was perhaps for us then the first strains of a pride larger than egoism. A glory bigger than the self. The halls leading us towards the gym would of course be decorated with little squares of red tissue paper that had been meticulously ruffled around the index finger and glued to a Flander's Field of felt. The year I remember most clearly is the one where I sang John Lennon's "Imagine" with my friend Maria; we were the soundtrack to a visually accosting slide show of images from the second world war. Our backs were turned. Everybody else had to watch and all we had to do was sing. I think even in the cold sweat of stage fright, we had the easier time.

Past those ritual assemblies of youth I don't remember most of my Rememberance Days. For most of us now they mean a day off, or at least time and a half. I don't doubt that this morning many ate their eggs benedict and sipped their americanos with a heightened sense of respect and a bright poppy on their lapel. I just marvel at how we so casually go about our normal outings, demanding that retail cater to our material hunger. As we waited for a table one of my brunch partners mused at what we weren't remembering--civil wars in his dual homelands Columbia and Egypt, all the wars ending and beginning, the war in the East. Later I stopped and looked around at the turtlenecks, the shoes, the espresso beans glimmering behind the bar. I thought of all the blood that had been shed for these things we indulged in so unthinkinglyon this Friday in November. I gave it only a moment, and then turned back to my breakfast. A sense of social justice is so seldomly translated into action.

On the bus on the way home a large man came and stood right in front of me. Maybe my "Peace" pin had set him off, or maybe he had some kind of prophetic message for us, his captive cargo. "I am the first-born son of a liberal-voting...went to a pentecostal church after I left Catholicism...I am grateful for the united states' effort to save the world...after 6 years of living in assonance..." all these unfinished, mumbled sentences. When the bus stopped he barrelled through the crowd, raising his voice, "OK folks we're going to get to that door, let's MOVE, I'm needing to get to that door now..." and then he was gone. The young man standing across from me smiled and said "that guy is on something." As I looked down at my poppy, and the guilty-looking pin on my bag, I wondered what war had been raged around him, with him, in him.

It's Rememberance Day and there's much to forget, much to remember, and much to take notice of in the people and things around us every day. This day is an ode to memory and to indifference. To battles unneccessary and un-fought. To pain we don't understand and to wounds we do not see.

In Dachau Concentration Camp, an iron gate remains. The German words for "Work Makes One Free" are set into its clasp. The picture at the top of this post is the International Monument that stands at the entrance to the site's Museum. I wonder what it is that truly makes us free, ignorance or memory.

"Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the stall; who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, and like David improvise on instruments of music; who drink wine from bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile, and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away." Amos 6:4-7.

As voices having aged grow stale

Our lives tend to turn and turn about like the arms of a great mill in a steady wind. When a decision comes, it is like a squall or an abrupt calm interrupting life's mechanism, changing its intensity and altering its movement. The time for action, whether to take sides or choose a particular course, comprises some of the most intense moments of our existence. Our emotions and our rational powers come together to joust--to test the other's weakness, and to weild their best weaponry. Our desires balance upon the narrow beam of others' expectations, and our best reasoning is toppled by our wildest dreams. Voices that were once clear become parched with time's gravel. The fresh fruit of revelation grows pocked and brown, the sweet scent of promise fades to a stale unknowing. When decisions loom, the everyday is transformed. We are catapulted to loftier heights where every thought and word is heavy with significance. On this altar of deliberation, where we are fated to the sacrifice of one of our loves, we are prone to a unique sort of spiritual lonliness.

In the pull of the options and opposites that make up choices, I am prone to feeling strangely alone. Not the kind of alone, however, that is the result of abandonment or neglect, but rather like a pillar of plaster as the mold is peeled away. Decisions render me exposed, stark and solitary. In the seasons of choice this pillar reminds me of my stature--secured to the ground beneath me that is trust, faith, and knowing. All around me there is the no-thing space that gobbles up our failure, like a ravenous dark chasm. But when I look down, when I wiggle my toes, there is that very-thing which enables me to exist at all, and it seems silly to ask this ground of being for anything more. And that is why these images bring a particular kind of alienation. And that is why I feel so full of glory--even tottering as I do in the open air, vulnerable and breakable--because I have been given this body and this life.

But it is not entirely this way. Our existential lonliness is countered by the sages, seers, friends and lovers who journey with us. Some join hands with us momentarily, others for a lifetime. Counsel of all sorts takes shape in soft voices, sharp-edged epiphanies, and the rare neutral settling of inner peace effected by a word. When I stumble into a season of decision, I stretch myself out, like tentacles grasping for wisdom and insight. I become fragmented into little pieces, scuttling about for some wayward shard of sense. I comb through the debris and the treasure of other people's knowledge. I grow weary, and want to be whole again. I begin to stumble and to lose my sight, and I want to be strong and secure again. As the chorus of voices recedes to a hum, only one voice remains--my own.

When it comes to making decisions, being a cynic by nature and dreamer at heart make for a frustrating hybridity. I lean one way one day and the other the next, one reason to stay is countered by one thousand to leave, and back and forth they play. In the heavens where my God resides and which are all around me there is a great mind and a great heart that knows what I will choose. It would be much easier to be let in on this future, but it is not my own to know. It is much more difficult to travel in this cloud of unknowing that is faith, to stumble half-blind and only half-enlightened by what we have come to know so far. I may shake my fist at this power, or beg it humbly to speak, but perhaps to let it be still and work instead inside of me--my desires, my dreams, and my reasoning--is the only real choice I face, and the wisest choice of all.

And if a prayer is just a musing directed towards something bigger than we are, then we ask for these things: For self-discipline, refreshment, and in emptiness the fullness of the kingdom. For the courage to live openly, and to embark creatively rather than nailing down who we are, and what our lives are, into a small, suffocating box of a strategy. To see life less as a business plan and more as a succession of moments. A moment followed by a moment followed by a moment. And then a memoir. And then at the end of time, like a long and weary day, a wonder-filled telling of all the stories that we've lived by. Amen.