On this blog I'm the center of my interest and it's boring.

Consider this:

"The purpose of prayer is to find God's will and to make that will our prayer."
- Catherine Marshall

*

A good piece of advice is one you can't take. In an intellectual hotspot around the corner from an Ivy League school, I ask my victim of the hour what he thinks I should do with the rest of my highschool years. I'm prepared for something like "get the best grades you can" or "work hard" or "figure out an attack plan to shoot down those evil _____ who are destroying our country with their lies." And he looks me straight in the eye and says, "Learn to love the people you find it hardest to love."

Immediately my mind is swarmed with faces, disturbingly vivid, and I know exactly who he is talking about. I still haven't gotten past that initial minute of shock and panic.

(what i feel like doing: some stress relieving. i would like to disappear into the middle of a forest, sit by a pond in a fat coat, and watch water droplets tremble on leaves. but i forget: there are no leaves.)

from my father, yet again

http://barach.us/2007/04/19/chocolat/

at least i have no reason to be embarrassed to imitate him.

not to mention that i spent a long time writing out my post-lecture reflections where i thought i had gotten to the nub of an issue - freedom overcoming submission - when i mention my confusion to daddy. i am bombarded by the suggestion that there is a third way. my undeveloped brain at first rejects the possibility, being certain that every coin has two sides, and i glower at the oven. but look, my metaphor betrays me: "they" are on "one" coin.
if, as the greeks said, we should do "nothing in excess," then complete (extreme) freedom of the individual (modernism) and complete (extreme) submission to the law (islam) are neither adequate replies to the struggle for coherence.
yet the idea of "nothing in excess" rings false. grace, after all, is excessive. that is extreme freedom. loving God is obeying God is responding to God with all of your being. that is extreme submission.
i'm annoyed that the reformation and the beginning of neocalvinism came before me. :/ but hey, maybe i'll be part of the next big - or small - movement.

i do still have two questions from my old post: how can a powerful country resist the temptations of empire without risking the persecution of another empire? how can the spread of democracy be successful if the people we are "spreading" it to don't want it?

also as daddy said: i do know the character of my God. Jesus.

i'll get back to this later. forever. i like that i'll never get to the nub of all issues. otherwise it would be pretty dull around here.
i keep hearing the rain outside and thinking "who is having a shower?!"

I ambitiously set forth ... my mother did, actually ... to buy green tea after trying a sample. Now I am drinking my first cup of genuine from-the-box green tea, rather than only-a-sample green tea. However, the sample was actually green, which may or may not be authentic but at least felt correct, and this is onion-brown and smells like it. The taste is similar, but the assault on my nostrils and my eyes accounts for two thirds of the lost experience. I recall, too late I fear, that this is what they serve in Asian restaurants. (Who invented green tea? Apparently 'tea plants' originally came from China, but that is according to Wikipedia, and I never know when Wikipedia is telling the truth.)
Ugh. I hope it'll grow on me.

P.S. White tea?

read.

new city church.

the great global warming swindle.

critique of "the great global warming swindle."

i am perplexed.

racist spokescharacters. who'da thunk?

His words fade in and out of my consciousness. I'm listening to a voice in my head that interrupts the voice outside; listen, listen, hear, listen, listen, hear.
There, I feel for them. My feelings fade in and out.
It's on my mind, on my mind, on my mind again and again and again.
To be loved, to be heard, to hear, to love. What it means is what it is, not a magical formula that we find between J and K, but acting out every letter of the word.
I've grown up with an indoctrinated distaste for triviality, but a reverence for the ordinary. The two bicker in the background from minute to minute.
I told a friend that small talk is important, that to pretend you're above it, to not allow yourself to lower yourself to that level, is a problem of pride. But when I watch a movie, or read a book, or see the conflicts that have cut and scarred the landscapes in our sleep, our kitchens, our classrooms and our diaries - until for some their daily life is an empty crater littered with deja vu of what they may have dreamt of dreaming - my heart aches from the bitterness and the chaos and the war. How can I sit there and force myself to think about making my bed, or the price of deodorant, or be happy?
How can I hide that I'm mourning for my country, for my family, for Lebanon, and for South Africa?
There are days when I am awash with adoration for the creation my God has designated my home. These are days when I can't ignore the acidity in the air. I don't want to pretend it's okay. I want to grovel in the dirt and scream. I want to be heard, I want to match the pain I have inflicted and that has been inflicted on others with the sounds of repentance and distress that comes out of my mouth.

It is about grabbing attention. Who will come to their aid? Yes, God is concerned with the hairs on our heads. Is my insignificant mind able to keep a steady hand and build sturdy chairs for impatient victories in a devastated land?
Should I stop, should I stop the pulse, shut my mouth, shut my mind and keep my eyes on the road? That seems an impossible task in itself. To be focused and able to do my part and care about my neighbours' burdens, that is the trouble.

"Sometimes I think the greatest bravery of all is simply to get up in the morning and go about your business." Lady Bird Johnson

(There remains this alarming fact: I don't want to clean up someone else's excrement. What is this, then, but a comfortable halfway lament?
I am a walking dichotomy - God helping me, I might help a stranger in the gutter, if there were no one else to do it. I mean that literally. I thrash out at any helping hands when I'm crapping on myself, though. I mean that metaphorically, and probably literally too. My sweaty hands let that sliver of grace slip.)

I caught Carnelia roaming in the backyard.

marley has been running through my head. took me a while to locate where those repeating words came from, which song and which singer, those repeating words like a stuck record.
I wanna know now, for I to knock some more.
Ya see, in life I know there's lots of grief,
But your love is my relief:
Tears in my eyes burn - tears in my eyes burn
While I'm waiting - while I'm waiting for my turn,
See!

even if i hate those people in the "Contemporary Christian Music" world that take popular songs and replace every 'girl' with 'God,' i kept singing "tears in my eyes, Lord, tears in my eyes, Lord."

sufjan's been a thorn in my side, in that ghastly-cough-medicine way.

He will take you. If you run,
He will chase you.
He will take you. If you run,
He will chase you
'cause He is the Lord.

a knife driving into the poison, burning, overcome by the force i've been trying to kill. every time i get to the end of genesis 15, my spirit quiets and a deep darkness passes into me, the darkness of safe embraces. every time i burn to the end of my fix-it-all rope, i return a crumpled pile of ashes to the Word. He moves. He speaks. He comforts my soul and in so doing satisfies the global thirst.

They heard a commotion from the barn. The animals were clucking and squealing, barking and braying, and one horrifying sound rose above it all. They found Samir in the chicken yard, flat out on the ground, arms spread wide as if embracing the earth... pouring forth such a lamentation of grief that Kes sat on the ground to weep.
Madman

do we underestimate the public mourner, here in NA? death is clinical. death is a number, a heart rate, a brain wave. if only we knew how, we could replace cells and heal every disease, extend youth, extend life, become the gods we were meant to be.
i find respite in poetry, in music, in africans who have seen the face of death and the strength of joy- but that doesn't quite cut it.

the old testament is heavy with grief, and i find honesty there, in the immediacy of promise, and the undoing, the crushing of the snake in the sacrifice. sometimes i read, feel, see hope as a cheap high in the face of reality. but right now i know that God will pick up the world and hold it, just hold it and love it and breathe it back into wholeness.

international day of prayer for zimbabwe

"Millions of people in Zimbabwe are suffering while the rest of the world seems to look the other way. Thousands are dying from AIDS. Food is scarce and often not available at all. Medication is in short supply. Fuel is unobtainable apart from outrageous prices on the 'black market.' The inflation rate is at a world's worst 1200 percent. Medical workers are on strike. 80 percent of the population is unemployed. Humanitarian aid organizations are restricted from getting life-saving supplies to the people and the country is in the midst of serious political turmoil."

Pray.

*

What makes being alive scintillating: talking deep into the black night, exclaiming "time flies!" at the clock and returning to a mug of tea. Seeing the twinkle in their eyes.
What would be cool: rolling over at three in the morning to ask what "he" thinks about the role of revenge in justice, about a movie, or anything. The only part of marriage that undeniably appeals to me, at least, appears to have no demons attached.
What makes "being alone" survivable: reading novels deep into the black night. In fact, it is so great that even if I had someone to talk to at 3AM I prolly wouldn't. :P

(It should be faux pas to think riches will make you happy. A poverty of the heart, a flood of untended hurt, on all sides. Helpless to hide them, protect them with my own superficial fixes. Money is necessary, money is powerful, money will buy you drugs... quip away. Blood is still on my hands at the end of the day.)

*
My future, a continuation of the strivings of the present, in a paragraph:
WHEN I GROW UP, OR WHEN I FEEL LIKE BEING RESPONSIBLE, OR TOMORROW
I'm going to keep a clean kitchen, sweep the floors, change the sheets, wash the tub as fast as I possibly can... but do it uncomplaining nonetheless.
I'm going to exercise every other day - I'm swimming tonight, EEEEEKKKKK, I used to hate swimming, will I like it now?
I'm going to learn how to cook healthy, tasty meals as fast as I possibly can while also finding time to savour the luscious sprays of lemon juice and scarlet dashes of strawberry sauce on seductive mousse... aHEM. Preferably, live with someone who does.
I'm going to set apart time to study, but I'm also going to stay up late in bars discussing .... philosophers.
I'm going to steward my money so that I can buy clothes, books and CDs without going bankrupt.
I'm going to have cocktail parties in my backyard with Chinese lanterns hanging in the trees.
I'm going to have friends who can walk over to my house and watch movies with me - I do already, but I'll have more, and this is to guarantee it lasts.
I'm going to go to bed early (this contradicts my earlier statement, but what can be done?) and wake up early so that I'm fresh and ready to plow into the day! *DumdumDAAA* The Day Begins! As opposed to "go away sunshine... go away alarm clock... go away LIFE."
I'm going to be a professor and a writer and theorize about everything. I'm going to start schools and organizations.
I'm going to go to fashion shows and rock concerts and operas and galleries.
I'm going to drink green tea - despite that it has the most revolting aftertaste in the history of tea - in the morning and rooibos tea at night.
I'm not going to be so materialistic, I'm going to give away most of my money, I'm going to live simply, I'm going to go on a pilgrimage through Asia to learn to pray, I'm never going to lose my temper or hiss at my family and scare them away.
I'm going to wear cheeky highheels - despite them being the most uncomfortable shoes in the history of shoes - and do something utterlessly outrageous in or out of them, once a week.
I'm not going to fret about other people's subtle hints that I am not so cool.
I'm not going to give people those subtle hints.
When I grow up I'm going to be perfect.
I'll need a bodyguard to do the lifting. And he'll need a gun.
Darn.

birds

Africa. When I turned four - on a Saturday - there was a cardboard box in the backyard. I opened it, and out waddled three white ducks, with three orange bills and six orange feet.
Daddy dug them a pond. The sweat poured down his back.
They swam in our pool and mom would chase them away.
I stuffed one into a hamster cage, awkwardly.
They lay eggs, but they didn't hatch. Rosie took them, and broke them, and ate them.
Until we left one to rest. A yellow duckling popped out. She ran around on the grass, she slipped through the fence and mom couldn't chase her away from the pool. That night there was a storm. We found her drowned in a puddle when the sun came up. "She must have been separated from her mother."
___

In their garden. I told Grandad I knew how to catch a bird. I would stick the bottom of a forked stick into the ground, and cradle the lip of a cardboard box in the crook of the forked stick. A few seeds would be placed under the box. I would attach the bottom of the stick to a string, and hide in the shadow of a bush.
Grandad and I woke very early in the morning, and waited. We didn't have to wait long before a little bird ventured under the box. Flap.
I tried to convince him that we could keep the bird. Grandad never harmed an animal in his life. He let scorpions live in his drawers and snakes live in his cupboards.
We let the bird go.
___

Beloved Country. Before we had the ducks, we had the budgies. I don't remember what colour they were. When mother cleaned the tray of the cage she put the top on the ground to keep the birds from flying away, and a stone on top of that. "Don't take off the rock," she warned Hannah and me. As soon as she left, Hannah took off the rock, lifted the cage and we watched them disappear. I imagined them in tropical trees with a resort style sunset view. Now I know I lived in a paid paradise in the middle of a dusty state.
___

A handful of years later, in suburbia. The bus stop was three blocks from our Brampton house. When we came from school mom met us. I would try and jump from crack to crack in the cement sidewalk. People lived in their garages in the suburb; occasionally they would leave the door open and inside I would see a television, often more than one, and fridges, oh the fridges. Ratty couches from who-knows-where.
That day there was a bird, either a pigeon or dove of some sort. It hopped across the road and flew up a meter until it was pulled back by gravity. We noticed it had injured a wing.
It scurried under cars and over cars while we tried to corner it. How we caught it is a mystery to me.
We called the SPCA, because it had a rubber ring around its neck. Nobody knew anything.
Mom named the bird “401,” after the highway. At the time highways were a freakish novelty, after the relaxed snail pace of Vancouver drivers.
We had a patio in the back, under a fiberglass roof. That was where he liked to be in the daytime. 401 soon settled down in the cardboard box we kept him in, and as his wing healed he would perch on the fence. One day he flew off and I don’t think I was sad.

number six is the best one

via alissa

facebook...

...is what happens when you take the 'book' part out of 'book' and the 'face' part out of 'face' and mix the leftovers together.

i don't want one kid to determine the depth of my "relationships," if you can even call that form of socializing anything beyond a "relation" - in the strictest sense of the word. i'm not a technophobe, but when the majority of my (your) social time is spent on facebook or blogs or msn, i (you) need to get a life. i made the mistake once and it wasn't pretty.

If Tom didn't like motorcycles, I would like Tom.

You should know this about me: I become angry like boys in red cars.
I usually vibrate with my own emotional upheaval, as though soundwaves were coming off my skin like AngerPowerWoahYEAH.
Today the amplifier shut down while I was busy attacking the guitar.
Yeah, woah...

(I was too free with my mouth. It barely makes any difference what I say or what you say; I have turned to stone.)

Am I left with no conscience or no temptation?

"Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago." Acts 3:19-21

The older you get and the more you sin, the harder it is to turn away from the old life. The dilemma of habit. I want to do whatever I feel like doing for now and pretend I'm good when I'm old (nearly wrote gold).
If only character didn't cement with time.
Is it true that if I turn, I can turn to times of refreshing? I have known the feeling.
It's hard to type this out. Coming like handmade labels. Stuck between two armies, two words. Stuck between the shower curtains. I don't believe in God in the morning. I don't believe anything in the morning. It sucks.
I am thinking about Father Cummings' famous axiom:
"There are no atheists in foxholes."

(I blog about God often. I have to. I think about Him often. I don't talk to Him as often.)

ha!

“In the end, I think the relationships that survive in this world are the ones where two people can finish each other’s sentences. Forget drama and torrid sex and the clash of opposites. Give me banter any day of the week.”

("Heather," in Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland)

found on Michaela's blog.
i'm so glad somebody's said it before. i must read that book.
when an author has written several books, they can be tediously similar. i like going back to an author several years after being dowsed in their writing. perhaps now is the time to take on another coupland.
problem is, i started another chesterton ('orthodoxy'), got bored and distracted (too much chesterton will get you pesterin' - forgive me), now i've started 'madman: a novel' by tracy groot and 'ghost soldiers: the epic account of world war II's greatest rescue mission' by hampton sides. i tend to forget about books inbetween conferences. (that was a rather remote joke.)
i'm hoping that by blogging about it i will be pinned to, and if not kept then tortured by the memory of, these words.

reconsidered

I am sick of boneless-chicken Christians who have no passion for Christ and no desire to know God and no sense of urgency to search out the truth. They may believe in righteousness, and everybody says the right things and abstains from the right things not because it’s right but because it’s what everybody does and it makes them feel they're okay-to-God. Frankly, I would rather hang out with somebody who strongly disagreed with me and cared enough to argue about it. Who cares what you do and what you believe if you don’t?
We desperately need a revival in the North American Reformed circles.

That said, what difference does it make whether I'm sick of it or not? Annoyance is a symptom of this apathetic culture.

So it is that I find myself in more profound communion at times with people of another religion who are much taken with mystery than with those of my own tradition who are sure doctrinal formulations are sufficient to explain the complexities of life, love, suffering, compassion and death. So it is that the atheist who is not defiant about what she doesn't believe, but rather is seeking a coherence between lived experience and theological construct, is my sister. So it is that one seeking to plumb the richness of what it means to be Christian rather than brashly asserting denominational identity or a particular position on biblical authority or what cannot be questioned, is my comrade.
Reverend Lawrence W. Farris

I believe in giving credit where credit is due, I don't think Dylan had a lot to do with it. I think God, uh, instead of touching him on the shoulder He kicked him in the ass. Really, and that's where all that came from, he can't help what he's doin'. I mean he's got the Holy Spirit about him, you can look at him and tell that.
someone in No Direction Home about Bob Dylan

(I think my goal for any church activities I participate in is to have a play with angels closer to “biblical teaching.” The potential is boundless. I wonder if anybody has thought of this before, other than Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.)

published!

lara, brittni, hannah, and i on Catapult.
andrea hensen on Catapult.

XIV

Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

John Donne

les gangsters

{ Force of Evil }

Leo: I know how bad you feel Freddy. It was a wicked foolish thing to do to put a gun in my brother's hand for him to kill you. That's what you wanted to do. That's what it was. I know how it feels to try to find someone to kill you, to finish you off, to take the crimes of your life on his head, on his hands...
Bauer: Please Mr. Morse. All I want is to quit. That's all. Nothing else. They won't let me quit, and I want to quit, I'll die if I don't quit.
Leo: I’m a man with heart trouble. I die almost everyday myself. That’s the way I live. It's a silly habit. You know, sometimes you feel as though you're dying. Here, here, here... you're dying while you are breathing.
A l'exterieur, la voiture noire des gangsters s'arrete. Leo a aussitot compris :
Freddy, what have you done? Freddy, Freddy, what have you done to me? Il crie. Les gangsters se saissent de Leo : Take it easy Pop... Bauer tente de s'enfuir... and you won't get hurt.
____

(I must be sick but that cracks me up. I saw that scene. I need to see the rest of the movie. I had a nightmare last night that ended strangely. I was about to blow up the bad guy's face with a gun - he was going to force a girl to get a machine inserted in her body that made her feel emotions she didn't truly have, heroic of me I know - but it turned out to be a camera, and I felt so juvenile flashing pictures of him laughing and making silly faces at the gun-camera while I was trying to destroy him... mortifying.)

Research is haaard.
____

Something I stumbled upon. The "first ever" photograph of Vietnam.

genesis321

And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

I will be "meditating" on this for the next few days.

tonight when the lights are dim...... and the fat suit slim

I am going to do something against my sense of superiority tonight. I am going to an art show for teenagers, where my photo is displayed. Sigh. A noncompetitive one at that.
It is an experiment, that's all, I tell myself, and I am not taking it seriously. We will hopefully see something unexpected, or meet someone unexpected. Taking risks are fun. Man, THIS is a risk???

We had the best conversations in the car to and from Grand Rapids. On the way there, we took a slight detour through Detroit... not because we got lost in the maze- that is, on the one highway all the way there, but lost in talk about effeminate boys and true love, etc. And on the way back, we came to a consensus that to surreptitiously call a movie (or perhaps, any art) "Christian" we mean "ripping off the scales to see a new reality." Based on that, a movie that was intended as an anti-Christian movie done by nonChristians could be(come?) Christian.
A good "nonChristian" movie would authentically (I'm not sure this is the right word - I'm speaking of the ability to bring you into a story, into the story of others) pull you into the world of darkness, including hopelessness, and give you a taste of the outcry. In other words, while a story may not picture the truth (but a lie), it may be a good story. This is contrary to what a lot of people at the festival said, but I think it's possible.

Now, that is not to say that the truth is glamourous or 'the easy fix' known as the short-hand answer that 'Jesus is your best friend,' eliminating the need for repentance or the struggle with sin. Yes, we live in an undeniably dirty place. Yes, Jesus saves. But as usual it's more than that while being exactly that.

The rest, of course, is neatly packaged and ready for distribution. Not.

Gobbledygoos?

P.S. Later: I always second-guess myself. Rightly. Grand statements inverted and redecorated, the next day. All my little ideas are Byzantine emperors.

P.P.S. We are finite. We are temporal. That is good, we were created that way. Therefore, the transience of fashion, performance, food, and flowers is good as well. We fell when we wanted to be like Him. The question is: how does death and the passing away of things fit in to the infinite and the finite? If limits are good, how does that change the way we understand and play our part in this place?

FFM

my heart has been skipping beats all weekend smelling God in the doorways. Lord of abundance!

your little boy eyes undid my lies.
"thank you for your physical devastation."

to an original convention, to people who let go of their own pride, to the excited squeals of middle-aged men and women beside the i'mtoocoolandcreative students: thank you. especially rob and kirstin, andrea, and allison: you know who you are!

my new favourite powerful band experience: son lux.

and... gasp faint... i think i like sufjan stevens as a speaker and songwriter better than a band...

talk to me.