The Beth Blog Ever

The tale of an up-and-coming fancy dancer

2012-02-12T22:51:00.000-08:00

Every Monday night since July, I have been trying out a new activity: First Nations traditional dance classes.

(Well, it hasn't been every Monday night... I took a bit of a break from dance after I stepped on a sea urchin while on vacation, but that's for another blog entry.)

I will say this up front: I am the whitest regular attender of the drop-in class. Last Monday, several new people joined us, so we did the customary go-around-the-circle-and-say-your-name thing, but we were also asked to share our tribal background. There were Miqmaqs and Plains Crees, two Squamish girls, a Haida woman, a Gitxzan, and a few people from Tsawwassen nation. When it was my turn, I said, "I'm Beth, and I am British/Irish/Swedish/Czech."

I am not only the whitest dancer, but also possibly the dancer with the least natural talent for dance. Sure, I can move in time with a piece of music, but I have always lacked the confidence required to do it creatively and convincingly. For much of my life, I have avoided school dances, and have made awkward small talk with other non-dancers during wedding receptions.

My whiteness and my lack of dance training combined to produce a fair amount of anxiety the first night I headed out toward the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre for dance class. As I walked, I rehearsed the reasons why I was going.

I need exercise.
The Friendship Centre is only a fifteen-minute walk from my house.
The classes are free.

Those reasons were convincing (especially the last one, on a low-income pastor's budget), but they could apply to a lot of other potential activities. They were not adequate to get me through the doors of the Friendship Centre.

I was invited to the class. That was a better reason. The teacher, who was fancy dancing at a National Aboriginal Day celebration put on by a local church, had invited the whole crowd to come to her class. But I could still rationalize that the invitation wasn't specifically intended for a white non-dancer like me.

I tried to think of another reason. I love to watch fancy dancing. Fancy dancing drew me in from the first time I saw it, in Saskatoon, during my undergrad years. I watched, dumbstruck, as the colorful ribbons of the dancers' shawls spun around them. They seemed to spend more time in the air than on the ground, traveling by tiptoe, their feet stepping deftly, as though the grass under them were actually a bed of hot coals. Perhaps if I enjoyed watching it, I would also enjoy doing it. Still, I had little faith I could reproduce such beautiful and free movement.

Thankfully, there was one more reason I had for learning to fancy dance, and this was the reason that pushed me over the edge: I believe I have a responsibility to protect and appreciate the cultures of my brothers and sisters, especially if those cultures have been denigrated, or threatened with assimilation and extinction.

I co-pastor a predominantly low-income First Nations congregation in a neighbourhood that is home to one of Canada's largest off-reserve Aboriginal populations. About a century ago, my people tried to take away the dances of their peoples; we called them evil and outlawed them in the name of Jesus. We tried to rob them of many of the ways they worshiped their Creator and expressed their uniqueness. We cut their hair, changed their names, and muted their languages. It was only by their ingenuity and collective memory that they kept these cultural elements alive. Today, some First Nations languages and practices are still very much in danger of extinction.

I have a responsibility to protect these cultures by virtue of being human, but even more so as a human who claims to follow Christ. I believe that what my people did was sinful and unjust. My Creator loves variety and values culture. His plan for humanity is not for us to merge into a monoculture, but for all the kings and nations of the earth to march (or maybe dance!) into the holy city in our glorious diversity, bringing all our splendor (Rev. 21:24).

I did not think that learning to fancy dance would in any way undo the damage caused by my people. I did, however, hope that it would take me a few steps closer to appreciating and understanding the beautiful culture I sought to protect in the name of Christ. Besides, the slight discomfort and embarrassment I might feel as a white girl in dance class would, at most, be a small taste of the many marginalizing experiences most First Nations people face daily.

It turned out that my first dance class wasn't nearly as awkward as I expected. Rather than explaining the steps, the teacher stood in front of me and demonstrated them over and over, which is a typically First Nations way of teaching. She told me to keep trying them for the next hour of dancing. I left exhausted but exhilarated. It took me a full month to get a feel for the heartbeat of the drum, and many more months before I was able to combine the steps more creatively. Now, I notice myself loosening up and relaxing. I am even making a couple of friends.

I am always ready to share my reasons for learning to fancy dance. Yet to this day, not a single person at dance class has asked me why a pale-faced redhead would keep showing up. Maybe in the future they will pop the question, but for now, they simply accept me as a fellow learner, laughing complaining with me during the warm-up abdominal exercises, and poking fun at me when I fail once again to anticipate the ending of a song. It is a privilege to be so welcomed, and to work with them to preserve and promote something so beautiful.

Watch for me on the pow wow circuit years down the road. I'll be the one blinding you with my white skin and my boss moves.

A video of one of my teachers fancy dancing.

Remembering Ricky

2012-02-02T14:27:00.000-08:00

I don't want all of my blog posts to be about friends who have passed away, but, well, there's been a bunch of them lately. Tonight, we're having a memorial for Ricky Lavallie. Ricky was probably the closest and dearest DTES friend I've lost yet. His death took a whole day to sink in (not to mention we didn't hear about it until 3 weeks after it happened), and I found myself weeping before falling asleep that night, remembering him and wishing we'd had more time together.

photo by Murray Bush - I hope he's ok with me using it everywhere - it's the best one!

I met Ricky a couple of years ago... maybe it wasn't even that long. He would come into Jacob's Well on Fridays for our coffee hour. He was a big Cree man, hunched over with his head sunken into his shoulders. He lumbered slowly along the sidewalk with a bit of a sideways lean. He always wore a ball cap and a leather jacket and sweatpants, and he never smelled very good. ;)

I remember the first time I really talked to him... he called me over and said I was "the only one who could pray for him." This happened several times. While I reassured him that everyone was capable of praying, not just those on staff or those known as pastors, I still enjoyed being chosen to lift up his requests, which were usually related to problems on his reserve back in Manitoba. He focused particularly on First Nations children and suicide.

Over time, he opened up about his own childhood, and how his brother was killed with a cattle prod when they were both very young, at the residential school they were both forced to attend. It never made sense to me how someone carrying so much church-inflicted pain could still be so eager to pray to God. Ricky somehow figured out God was a God of justice, and that this God called him to share his story and fight against continuing injustices. He lived out at Occupy Vancouver full-time only a month before he died. He could endear himself to anyone, from anarchists to Christian conservatives.

About a year ago, Ricky started bringing his guitar to coffee time at Jacob's Well. "His guitar" was always changing - I don't know if I ever saw him with the same guitar twice, and though he'd always say the last one was stolen, I'm pretty sure they were in and out of the pawn shop. Ricky played with a barred finger in open D, which is easier than learning chords, but his skill came in that he could immediately figure out the chords for almost any song, and he could pick out the melody on the high frets, too. He'd play with the guitar resting on his big belly, hunched over, eyes often closed.

He would jam with whoever wanted to play with him. In fact, I think music didn't mean much to him unless it drew people around him. I can't really picture him playing alone in his room. He'd play on Commercial Drive, busking for money. He'd play at all of the DTES Christian gatherings and missions and community centers and protests. He'd play whatever he thought people would want to hear and sing along to, from worship songs, to gospel, to country, to blues. His favorite was bluegrass. He'd often make up songs on the spot, singing about whoever and whatever was near him, working in all sorts of humour and little joking insults. My favorite songs to do with him were "I'll fly away" and "Ring of Fire" and "Folsom Prison Blues."

I miss you, Ricky.
I miss playing the chords while you riffed on the melody.
I miss tuning my guitar to open D so you could play it.
I miss the way you'd say "Jesus" when you prayed to him.
I miss your banter with Gary. "Ask Gary..."
I miss you referring to people in the third person even though they were right there.
I miss you asking "Where's Beth?" when I was in the office, and you wanted me to come to the table.
I miss making you posters to advertise your concerts.
I miss you asking when the next group of "young people" was coming in, so you could come meet them.
I miss the way you gathered people.
I miss your playful teasing.
I miss your threats to "bannock slap" me. I'm glad I never found out what that felt like.

I wish I could have given you all those guitar picks I'd been collecting for you. They were still in my pocket the day I found out you'd died.

I wish we could have found a Santa costume so you could be our Santa at our Christmas tea, like you wanted. It's ok though, we had a good time with those carols.

Remember the time when you played worship songs with us out on the Hastings sidewalk at the end of our Welfare Wednesday party in August, as the sun set over the old hotels, and the sky turned pink?

Remember when you surprised all of us by joining in on our dance party at Creative World Justice? You were "party rocking" with the best of us, glowsticks stuck in your ball cap?

Remember playing old worship songs around the campfire at the same festival? We stayed up until all hours of the night because you wouldn't let any of us leave. You were in your prime.

Remember when you drew a picture of a buffalo dance, and drew a face in the sun, and told me I was the sun?

Remember when I came to speak at RAW, and I was still recovering from pneumonia, and you wouldn't let me go up and talk until you got a few people I didn't know to pray for me?

Thank you for being my elder and my friend.
Thank you for sharing yourself with me.
We will keep fighting your fights and singing your songs.
(We're gonna sing up a storm tonight, in your honour, you'll see!)

We'll see you soon, buddy,
hallelujah by and by.

Selma

2012-01-14T12:29:00.000-08:00

I have lost a lot of friends on the DTES in the last couple months. I don't always know how to grieve them, because sometimes their deaths are bittersweet. A lot of them carry a lot of pain, and I'm glad to finally see an end to the pain. But I miss them.

Selma was more of an acquaintance than a friend. She passed away a few days ago. As I've been remembering her this week, I started working on a poem about one morning I spent with her. I have struggled over whether or not to share it online. My hesitancy in posting it is that I don't want to sentimentalize or sensationalize her. She was much more than this moment I had with her; she was a whole lifetime of moments. In the end, I decided to post it because I want to try to let you in more on some of my experiences on the DTES. I want to do so in a way that humanizes and does not exploit or commodify my friendships. I really hope this is one such way.

Selma

today,

she was calm

didn't remember me

asked for my name

first and last

she's named for her aunt

but her mom's name is Katherine.

I fixed her coffee.

she was distracted

repeating little things

lipstick lips pursed

all whispers and mumbles

not looking at me

eyes fixed on her red Converses

thoughts a world away.

I watched her.

she was delicate

slender fingers like a dancer's

small controlled movements

painting her fingernails

with invisible brushes

what colour? I asked

green

green like my dad's eyes

trailing off.

I couldn't make it all out.

she was lost

her hand

her newly-painted nails

moving up her bare scarred arm

her thumb closing in on two fingers

an invisible plunger

my mom taught me

how to do powder

showing me

instructing me

delicate and careful

over and over

but my mom said

don't do it every day.

I didn't say anything.

she was content

loved the room

loved the fireplace

said she wished she could

in here

all the time.

Joy Will Find A Way

2011-12-25T00:03:00.000-08:00

I just heard the bells ring at the Russian Orthodox church down the block. It's Christmas.

My Advent season has been spent mostly with folks who wait not with eager expectation of Christmas, but with a certain amount of dread, because of the grief and loneliness that are so much more palpable during the holidays.

One woman said she tried to come up with a project to do in the last week of December so she didn't have to think about Christmas. Several others told me they didn't celebrate. It was just a time of year to be endured.

Last year this caught me off guard. I was accustomed to approaching Christmas with nostalgic, warm, fuzzy feelings. I didn't know what to do with my friends in the DTES who struggled to find reason for hope. I didn't know what to do with my own grief, as it was the first time in my life I'd missed the Christmas Eve service at Emmanuel Baptist in Saskatoon. Rain poured down on our poorly-attended church service in the DTES, and I longed for the familiar.

This year, I let myself enter into the grief a little earlier. I participated in several 'Blue Christmas' services that my colleague Al led in the DTES, where we provided space for less-than-merry emotions people were experiencing. People could light candles for loved ones they missed, or for other pain they carried, and we remembered together that the Creator held our stories, and would not leave us.

Tonight, we did our church Christmas Eve service. We were blessed with nicer weather, and we partnered with another community, so there were more people, and a real tone of celebration. I was grateful. We closed our service with a song we've been singing at church throughout Advent: "Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King". We inserted our own longings... "no more dying there... No more violence there... No more loneliness... We are going to see the King!". We remembered together that just as Christ came as a child to inaugurate his kingdom, he will come again and wipe away every tear, and bring total shalom. Nothing will be missing or broken. No one will be missing or broken.

I want to share one more song with you. At the end of each of the Blue Christmas services, Al played this song, by Bruce Cockburn, called 'Joy will find a way'. It's a song about death, but it has also become a Christmas song for me. This is the hope I cling to for myself, for my friends, and for any of you who may carry grief or disappointment or illness or family brokenness this Christmas. Whether we are blessed to taste this now, or whether we must continue to wait, know this... Longing will become love, night will turn to day, everything changes, joy will find a way.

Soon and very soon.

May this dangerous, inextinguishable hope break through the darkness for you, especially today.

This band I like.

2011-09-19T17:45:00.000-07:00

So I was changing my laundry, and I found a glow stick in the dryer, among the clothes. And I thought, I'd like to switch up the tone of the blog for a change, and write about Dave Matthews Band.

Over the Labor Day weekend, my roommates and I drove down to the Gorge Amphitheatre, which is in the desert plateau of central Washington, about halfway between Seattle and Spokane. Kat was about to turn 30, and her birthday request was for us four to spend the weekend camping and enjoying concerts for three days and nights at the Dave Matthews Band Caravan.

I've been listening to Dave Matthews Band for a good chunk of my life now - in fact, when I met Danice six years ago, they were one of the only bands in my collection that Danice actually approved of. :) Seeing DMB live has been on my bucket list for some time. It turned out this was the perfect year to cross it off. DMB plays the Gorge every Labor Day weekend, but this time, for the first time, they brought about 20 other bands with them. I particularly enjoyed John Butler Trio, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Devotchka, and the Roots.

The Gorge was breathtaking. You walk up a road and over a hill to see a huge bowl-shaped stretch of grass covered in picnic blankets and people, with another huge crowd of people standing on the ground below them in front of an enormous stage, and behind everything, there's this beautiful backdrop of rocky plateaus, water, and sky. This photo I stole off the internet doesn't do it justice.

Every day we woke up in our tents to the sounds of frat boys playing beer pong and hippies dancing and smoking. We relaxed in the mornings, went to the amphitheatre after lunch to watch bands play all afternoon under the hot hot sun, and then stayed for a Dave Matthews Band concert every evening, with about 20, 000 people in attendance. They performed three nights, three hours each, which means we experienced over nine hours of live Dave Matthews music, ten if you include the incredible acoustic hour of just Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds we watched one afternoon. Ten hours is a lot for one band. You'd think they would either run out of music or that we'd get tired of them. But when we left the Gorge that final night, there were still songs we wished they had done.

Dave Matthews Band is possibly the best live band I've ever seen. Here's what makes them great:

- No two live shows are the same, because the band members all do so much improvising. Some of their songs had intros, musical interludes, or outros that were several minutes long, each featuring one or two instrumentalists who would play around with melodies, harmonies and rhythms on top of the chord structure of the song. Dave loves to step back and let his band members take the spotlight. Sometimes the band members will play off each other, making eye contact, smiling, showing respect for each other's skills, and pushing one another to play more difficult licks.

- Their songs and their style are unique. The band mixes acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, drums, violin, trumpet and saxophone, which makes them hard to classify in terms of genre. They have unusual chord progressions, time signatures, and melodies in their songs. The lyrics are rarely straightforward or obvious - they take some unpacking, and I like that.

- Their songs take you somewhere. They have the ability to capture a mood and sustain it, and then take you into another mood in the bridge, and bring you back again, if necessary. On the second night, they played my favorite song (possibly of all time), “Bartender”, which is a classic example of this, a song about redemption, with God playing the role of a bartender. It starts off with a simple, straightforward, powerful riff, builds in passion and intensity on the chorus, then hits a climax with this pleading, chanting, wordless bit that Dave does with his voice, and the band takes over, slowly winding down to a peaceful, grace-filled ending on the tin whistle.

- The individual band members are very strange, eccentric, "un-hip" people. It’s hilarious watching Boyd, this ripped black man playing or plucking a tiny violin, flinging his dreadlocks and contorting his mouth when he plays. Tim can shred with the best of them on the electric guitar, but he's such a small man that he looks like a kid playing with his dad's instruments. Dave moves his eyebrows strangely and dances spasmodically when he plays his guitar. But they don’t seem to care- they’re confident in their weirdness, lost in the music, uninhibited. And this makes them very hip, perhaps hipper than hip.

- The glow sticks. This is apparently a "thing" at Dave Matthews concerts, and I know some people don't like it, and it could get old, but I thought it was magical. People brought tons and tons of glow sticks to the concert, and they'd throw them up all in the air at an appropriately epic moment in a song, creating a firework effect. Sometimes when the band started a song that everyone was excited about, you'd see glow stick fireworks exploding all over the place. Then people would gather the ones that fell near them and throw them all over again. On the last night, everyone started connecting the glow sticks into a long snake, which wound itself slowly all around the amphitheatre.

In conclusion, they are a lot of fun to watch. Kat, thanks for turning 30, and thanks for choosing such a great participatory gift for yourself!

Identity, Pride, Justice and the Church

2011-08-07T09:47:00.000-07:00

Two events happened last weekend, and as I have been reflecting on them, I've had thoughts. And when I have thoughts, as you know, I tend to write them here.

Event 1: Vancouver Pride Week. This is a time when Vancouver celebrates gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) people. Some of the events are over-sexualized, but in its best moments, Pride Week shows a marginalized group reclaiming pride in a deep and often denigrated part of their identity.

Event 2: the Wiconi Family Camp and Pow Wow just south of Salem, Oregon. This is where I went last weekend with 16 people from my church. Richard Twiss (whom I quoted in my recent post about Aboriginal day) and his colleagues at Wiconi are all about removing barriers and building bridges to help First Nations people find abundance and life in God. They affirm, respect and embrace First Nations culture as God-given. They have been running this yearly family camp and pow wow for six years.

It was a great time of bonding for us as a church family, and also brought a lot of "firsts" for me: first time drumming around a group drum at a pow wow; first time trying out my fancy dance moves in some intertribal pow wow songs; first time doing a sweat in a sweat lodge. I also got to meet a lot of First Nations people and hear their stories. Richard introduced the weekend by telling us that we're all two-legged stories, and that we should try to be good readers. There were common veins running through the "stories" I "read": Native people finding God; being told by Christian leaders that in order to be true Christians they had to leave their culture behind; and experiencing shame and disorientation. One woman from LA came to the camp for the first time, with her daughter. She had recently been told by people in her church that her daughter should stop learning First Nations dances. After a time of wrestling and confusion, on a whim, she googled "Christian pow wow" and found the Wiconi website. She arrived at family camp after 24 hours of driving (lots of construction and traffic), still confused and unsure of what to think about her culture and her faith, and how to raise her little girl.

As I listened to more and more stories like hers, I couldn't help thinking of Pride week in Vancouver, and the very similar experiences of GLBT people in the church. Both Native and GLBT Christians know the depth of pain in having fellow Christians suggest or imply that they should be ashamed of a fundamental part of who they are.

I know that some people will take issue with me comparing someone's race to someone's sexual orientation, in terms of how "essential" they are to identity, or how "changeable" they are. One's race is obviously very essential to one's identity, and impossible to alter. But I believe one's sexuality, though perhaps not equal to one's race in these respects, is at least comparable. While sexuality is complex, depending on many genetic and developmental factors, I feel I can safely say that we don't usually choose our sexual orientation, and we can't usually change it. Our sexuality is about more than just who we want to have sex with; sexuality interacts deeply with many parts of who we are, like our creativity, our friendships, our ways of expressing ourselves and relating to the world. And from the evidence I've seen, efforts to change a same-sex orientation into a heterosexual one have rarely been successful, though those who are highly motivated can learn to live celibately or in mixed-orientation marriages. For the many who have been forced (or who forced themselves) through these programs, the only thing that has changed is an ever-deepening sense of shame, similar to the shame felt by Native children in residential schools as well-meaning Christians tried in vain to change them into white children.

At one point in my weekend, a Hopi woman at the camp cried out to God: "God, the people in Your church tell us that You created us in Your image, yet they can't love us for who we are." Hearing her pain made me more convinced than ever that it is unjust and cruel for the church to make any group of people feel like they're disqualified from having been made in the image of God, or from experiencing the love and welcome of God. It is cruel to suggest to these people that the only way to qualify as image-bearers or people worthy of God's love is to deny, hide, or alter a deep, undeniable and unchangeable part of their personhood. Even the much more subtle "Don't ask, Don't tell" attitude in the church around sexuality is cruel, because it is another way of forcing people into hiding. Jesus modelled a different way. Jesus seemed almost magnetically drawn to the people the religious leaders threw out, those who carried the most shame, and he loved them until the shame slid right off of them and they remembered who they were again.

I know it's not easy. There are theological issues we will have to work through. There are the challenges of culture: figuring out what is syncretistic and idolatrous, and what is good and useful for worship. There are the challenges of sexuality: figuring out what is impure and selfish, and what is beautiful and self-giving. In the introduction to Richard Twiss' book, John Dawson, a white friend of Richard's, wrote this: "Far be it from me to comment on the complex cultures I see all around me. It is up to indigenous believers themselves to separate the precious from the worthless in their cultures. They know the Bible well and they know their cultures well." I witnessed this thoughtful, prayerful discernment happening around me at the Wiconi gathering. I'd like to see us say the same thing to GLBT Christians - to admit that same-sex-attracted Christians are the most qualified people to discern what in their sexuality is sinful, and what God delights in. This is difficult work, and they will need the church's love, support and trust as they discern together. They may choose to ask the rest of the church for help, but the work needs to begin and end with them, and so far, this has not often been the case.

At the Wiconi camp, I saw many signs of hope. I saw First Nations people who had discovered God's delight in their cultural expressions, who were released to worship Him out of the fullness of their identity. I saw strong people who had moved through suffering to a place of forgiving and blessing the very Christians who had hurt them. I saw elders surround the woman from LA and her daughter at the pow wow, welcoming them into their family, honouring them with a special drum song, sending the little girl dancing joyfully ahead of them, in full regalia. I saw the re-integration of these people's essential identity, their belovedness as children of God, with all the other God-given aspects of their personhood. It brought tears to my eyes to see people move through depths of pain to depths of joy.

I believe that the way we treat First Nations and GLBT people are among the biggest justice issues in the Canadian church today. As Christians, we must own our shameful involvement in residential schools, the suppression and near-obliteration of culture, and promotion of anti-gay sentiments, and we must begin to seek God's forgiveness and the forgiveness of these people. Until we learn to radically welcome and support one another as Jesus did, vulnerable people will continue to live under burdens of shame and hate, and the church will be deeply impoverished for lack of their gifts and unique expressions of worship. My prayer is that God will bring us back into the fullness of our identity as His beautifully diverse Bride.

Give away money ... save yourself!

2011-07-23T19:02:00.000-07:00

One of the most common questions people ask me at our Jacob's Well workshops is whether I give money to panhandlers or beggars. My thoughts have shifted on this topic over the last year, so I decided to try re-settle them into words and sentences.

Even though most Vancouverites who beg live in my neighbourhood, they don't beg as often here as they do in the downtown core, where all the money is, so I don't get asked for money nearly as much as people who work downtown. (To be honest, I struggle more with whether to lend money to my low-income friends here on the DTES, whether the borrower-lender dynamic will strengthen or distort the friendship.) Still, I probably get asked for money by strangers at least once a week.

For most of my life, I thought it was best not to give money to panhandlers. You can probably guess some of my reasons. Giving away money to one person would not help solve any of the deep-seated root causes of poverty. I didn't want to risk enabling or contributing to peoples' substance abuse and addictions. I had also heard that many of them made more money begging than I did in my work at a non-profit organization.

In the last year, though, I have done some reading that has caused me to reconsider this, including this blog post by Emily Hunter McGowin (whom I don't know personally, but whose blog I somehow found), and a section in a book called Bent Hope by Tim Huff, who works with street youth in Toronto.

Emily and Tim both know that money is a tricky thing. Let's take a five-dollar bill. In a physical sense, it's worth 500 cents, no matter what. But in a spiritual sense, its value is changeable - it all depends on the circumstances and the state of our heart. Jesus hints at this when he talks about the widow giving away her last two pennies (though I think he's really pointing out injustice and corruption in the church, but that's for another blog entry). When given as an expression of deep generosity and surrender, like the widow's, the five-dollar bill can become priceless. Dropped begrudgingly, guilt-laden, into a beggar's cup, it's worthless. Clutched and loved, it's dangerous, the root of all kinds of evil; just when you think you're controlling it, you find it's controlling you.

Let me use another example of the weird, changeable value of money. Jacob's Well, where I work, is a non-profit community, depending entirely on the donations of churches and individuals to pay rent and staff salaries. Essentially, we are beggars! And yet as a community, Jacob's Well tithes every month, giving away 10% of what we get. We recently gave some money to a non-profit that supports at-risk youth in Winnipeg, to encourage them. One of the people on their staff was so blown away by this that she donated a similar amount online to Jacob's Well. This is completely illogical! Dollars and cents were sent eastward to them, and those same dollars and cents were wired back west to us. A waste of time and energy, a zero sum, you might think. But in Kingdom accounting, we both gained incredible amounts of encouragement through these mutual gifts, and we lost something important, too - we lost some of the hold money has on us.

Jesus says crazy things about money. They're too straightforward, too easy to rationalize and spiritualize:

"Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you." - Matt 5:42

"But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back." - Luke 6:35

Why does Jesus ask us to give in such broad, undiscriminating ways? Certainly for the sake of the person who is in need. But could there be another equally important reason?

Maybe, Emily suggests, it's for your own good. For your own spiritual formation and protection. Maybe it's because, as Emily puts it, you're a "greedy, covetous, materialistic, rich pig of a sinner who needs to be transformed."

Yes, we're supposed to be wise with the resources we're given to steward. But I agree with Emily: I believe Christ calls us to be even wiser about the potential soul-numbing, blinding effect those resources have on us, especially in our current cultural situation. Money itself is not evil - it is merely a tool. But in the Western world, and yes, in the Western church, this tool is a pickaxe, and it's stuck deep in us, because we love it too much. We love the comfort of money; we love the privilege of deciding how much of it to hoard, how much of it to spend, how little of it to give. As a resource and a blessing, it's meant to flow freely and generously and joyfully through our fingers into the hands of those who actually need it, but it sticks and stays, covered in honey of our rationalizations. We abuse and misuse the privilege of wealth, and I think Jesus knew we would.

I like to think money doesn't tempt me, doesn't exert control over me, but I know that it does. So I've started taking Jesus a bit more literally, and giving it to complete strangers who ask me for it, without being able to define what they're allowed or not allowed to do with it. (After all, my employer, who gave it to me, made no such demands.) Sure, it might be used to buy drugs... but I cannot pretend that I have not also misused money to numb pain. It also might be used to buy food. It also might be given away to someone else, accruing even more spiritual value. Jesus does not ask me to discover or legislate what it is used for; He asks only that I let go of it.

As I open my wallet to give to the stranger, my hands whisper to my heart this truth: This paper note, this metal coin - it doesn't belong to me, and it never did, and it never will. I was only holding on to it for a while. It doesn't own me. It doesn't provide for me - my Creator does, and will continue to do so, as long as I follow his instructions about what to do with it.

So that's where I'm at... I'm giving to panhandlers because it feels like freedom, it feels like joy, and every time I do so, it pulls the pick-axe a millimeter further out of my heart, and washes a bit more honey off my hands.

Post-script: If people are still concerned about strangers unwisely using money, here's some great counsel from Tim : "Set aside a jar on your kitchen windowsill, or at the corner of your desk, and every time you have gently said "no" to a person panhandling, take the coin you decided not to give and put it in that jar. And when the jar is filled donate it to a mission or outreach or program that you know will use the money well for those who are homeless. Be released from the strife caused by the battling little voices in your head telling you it is a bad idea. But do something that will at least dam the flooding hypocrisy of speaking this great concern and doing nothing." (128)

Happy Aboriginal Day!

2011-06-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

Today is National Aboriginal Day in Canada (as well as being the longest day of the year). I have been on a steep learning curve in so many ways in the last few years, in terms of Aboriginal culture, history, and identity, and it's so good to be able to celebrate them today.

One of my god-daughters, Summer Breeze

I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking about First Nations people and the Church, and the history of the pain Christians have inflicted physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, even culturally by suppressing and even extinguishing many of their customs, dances, and languages in the name of Christ. I am praying for justice, which will involve the laying down of our wealth, privilege, and lives, and reconciliation (actually, for a new "conciliation", as Jodi pointed out to me, since we messed things up so royally from the moment of first contact that we cannot look back to a time when things were conciliatory.) I am praying especially for First Nations cultural expressions of worship to be recognized and honored in the Church, rather than avoided and shamed, and that through this, the Church will actually be a preserver of culture, rather than a destroyer of culture.

I leave you with a couple quotes from an excellent book I just read by Richard Twiss, "One Church Many Tribes":

Doesn't it seem reasonable to think that, after nearly five centuries of steady evangelism, at least two or three Native Americans would have emerged as significant leaders in the contemporary Church in America?... "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don't need you!' And the head cannot say to the feet, 'I don't need you!'" (1 Cor. 12:21). It may be difficult to hear or to accept, but I believe that because of clashing cultural worldviews, the Anglo expression of Christ and His Kingdom has said to the Native expression of Christ and His kingdom, "I have no need of you. I don't need your customs, your arts, your society, your language, concepts or perspectives." If you look at a thing and cannot identify any value in it, you will have no perceived sense of need for it. And if you have no need for it, then you get along without it. (58)

The Native community is to this day primarily viewed by Evangelicals as a needy but largely forgotten mission field, a group in need of receiving ministry. The flow of ministry between the Anglo and Native churches is almost always in a top-down direction, a one-way flow of goods, services, ministry and resources from the Anglo church to the "lower " Native church. I would love to see some of our Anglo church leaders, when asked to help a Native church, say, "Yes, but on one condition: only if you will in turn send your pastors and leaders to come and equip us with the grace and gifting God has given you as Native people." When that day comes, it will verify that we are seen by our Anglo brethren as equal collaborers in the mission of the Church. (58)

In America today, the entire Church is suffering spiritually because of the suffering of the Native expression of the Body of Christ. We cannot escape our connectedness in Christ, and we must comprehend the Lord's requirement upon us to be more aware of the overall condition of the Body, not just those more prominent parts. (61)

It is from observing the quality of our relationships with one another that non-Christians will arrive at the conclusion that there is reality in Jesus Christ. How awesome it will be when skeptical non-Christian Natives are moved by envy at the sight of Native and Anglo folks loving, preferring, honoring, enjoying and serving one another! I have witnessed relationships serving as the basis for reconciliation, as well as relationships arising from reconciliation. Regardless of which comes first, our relationships are the bridges that will endure and over which great, loving armies of ministry can flow both ways - to and from God's First Nations people. (172)

Confessions

2011-05-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a strange few weeks since Easter. Jacob's Well flooded (no, the irony is not lost on us), and the space is unusable for at least a month. My laptop has been broken for a few weeks, which is quite disorienting considering how often I usually use it. I participated in our denominational general assembly and the Regent pastor's conference, so I've been with a whole bunch of pastors and other church-y people, where I have felt both a sense of belonging and a sense of distance and disconnect. Friends are going through difficult times, and it's hard to know how to help, and to be present in the midst of their pain. And what has brought more grief than I would have expected was the death of our pet hedgehog last Sunday, after only a month of having him in our house.

It is still the Easter season, and I am looking for signs of life and hope, a good discipline especially when times are hard. There is life. There is green outside, and inside too, as Kat has been growing all sorts of plants for our garden. I can find things to be thankful for.

But in this generally raw and challenging time, when I feel weak and tired, confession is what flows most easily. I've been trying to write down some confessions, since the same old sins crop up over and over. I thought I'd share one I've been working on and adding to for a while now. Some of the ideas are shamelessly plagiarized from Dorothy Day and Shane Claiborne.

Lord,

For the times when I am overly impressed with myself,
imagining the biographies that will be written about me,
forgive me.

For the times when I am less gracious with myself than you are,
sinking into the ugly pit of self pity,
forgive me.

(For generally thinking too much about myself,
forgive me!)

For the days when you call me to be generous with my time and instead I am stingy,
hiding my laziness behind excuses like "taking care of myself,"
forgive me.

For the days when you call me to rest and be alone and instead I work,
hiding my compulsive "need to be needed" behind excuses like "this can't wait,"
forgive me.

When I let my impatience with the Church in the West harden into bitterness
instead of driving me to prayer and confession,
forgive me.

When I overexaggerate my own poverty,
and when I underestimate the challenges faced by wealthy Christians,
forgive me.

When I overestimate my spiritual strength,
and when I fail to let You shine through my weaknesses and vulnerabilities,
forgive me.

When I say beautiful things about kindness and grace to those on the margins,
but fail to show kindness and grace in my own home,
forgive me.

When I mentally compete with other pastors, non-profits, or communities,
focusing on where we differ rather than on how we fit together in the Body,
forgive me.

When I fail to mourn with those mourn,
but instead find secret reassurance that I'm not the only one with problems,
forgive me.

And above all,
when I lose hope in your kingdom,
when I lack faith in your power to do miraculous things,
(or when I try to dictate what those things should be
and exactly when and how they should happen,)
forgive me.

Teach me to wait in active hope for Your kingdom to transform the world.
Teach me to wait in active hope for Your kingdom to transform me.

Reverse Gentrification

2011-04-26T23:20:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

I wrote an article that I'd love to share with you. Finally, a wonderful current event to cover in Vancouver! Tongue firmly planted in cheek. ;)

(photo from http://blog.yaletowninfo.com/2009/05/yaletown-pin-sharp/)

APRIL 25, 2011

Mayor Frobertson held a press conference this afternoon during which he announced a new low-income housing project slated for construction in the heart of Yaletown, part of the city's attempts to revitalize the neighbourhood.

“We have a lot of hope pinned on this new development. As you know, council has been concerned about Yaletown for quite some time. Consumption runs rampant from Homer all the way to Beatty. It's a breeding ground for the most dangerous kind of capitalists. It's hard to say whether we can even call it a community anymore – one recent study found that 97% of Yaletown residents cannot name anyone else who lives in their condo building. To leave Yaletown to its own devices at this point would be unconscionable.”

Councillor Kerry Flang added, “Something has to be done in Yaletown – luxury has become an end in itself. Upward mobility has gotten so out of control that most of these unfortunate penthouse dwellers have no time or motivation to reach out and connect with other people. Even the yoga classes have failed to bring them fulfilment and inner peace. The little dogs aren't helping. Sadly, some have turned to anti-depressants.”

Frobertson reported that one city councillor had suggested bulldozing Yaletown and starting over. But after talking about some more creative solutions, council is now confident that by seeding Yaletown with a low-income population, revitalization will be swift.

The strategy, which has been dubbed “reverse gentrification” by council, has been met with some skepticism by the DTES residents who will be invited to fill the new low-income Yaletown housing. “I guess Yaletown is nice, with the seawall and False Creek and everything, but how will we afford to live there?” asked one shelter dweller who attended the press conference.

The mayor reassured him, announcing that tax breaks would be provided to stores and shops catering to the new low-income Yaletown residents. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “an 'Army & Navy' will be opening right on the seawall in 2013, and I've also heard that the owners of the old 'Save on Meats' are eyeing a Yaletown location beside the Cactus Club.”

DTES resident Fraser Stuart admitted that it would be difficult to leave the DTES. Like 90% of those who call the DTES home, he would prefer to stay. “I have found such a family, such a network of support in the DTES. I don't know if I would survive in a neighbourhood where no one stops and talks to you on the street. Where are the people in Yaletown who work for social justice? Where are those who volunteer? Where is the empathy, the community spirit? Then again, I guess that's why the mayor want us to move in.”

Councillor Raymond Flouie also spoke at the conference, focusing on a different angle: preserving the heritage of Yaletown. “Yaletown used to be where all the rail workers lived; it was full of warehouses and factories,” remarked Flouie. “How do all of these rich young professionals honour the industrial heritage of Yaletown? We can't afford to see this history die. We simply must bring back some folks who know what it means to work hard and get dirty for practically no pay. I can't think of anyone better than the minimum-wage-workers and binners of the DTES.”

At one point in the afternoon, Mayor Frobertson told a heart-warming anecdote about the early stages of the project. “I was discussing the plans with my favourite real estate developer, Bob Rennie, and I'll be honest, he was less than thrilled about it, worrying about what it would do to the real estate market in Yaletown. But then I quoted something he himself said: 'We need to have the less fortunate walking down the street next to the fortunate.' And the scales fell off Bob's eyes, in a sense, as he saw how it applied to Yaletown. We both sat there, marvelling at this beautiful vision of an inclusive Yaletown, enshrined in this wonderful new social housing. He now agrees that it is imperative to restore a social and income balance to Yaletown.”

Even though many residents of Yaletown have expressed their opposition to this reverse gentrification plan, council seems poised to go full-steam ahead with the project. “Frankly, we don't want to stop with Yaletown,” confessed Flang at the close of the press conference. “We're hoping the entire middle- and upper-class will soon reap the benefits of this reverse gentrification strategy. We have some very interesting ideas for Shaughnessy.”

(Photo from: http://bxnative.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/women-and-gentrificationmaking-some-connections/)

Post Scriptus (this is a real quote:)

“One of the driving logics of gentrification in the Downtown Eastside is 'social mix'. Yet every single time 'social mix' is proposed in a middle-class or rich neighbourhood, it is rejected. No one wants a social housing project, a detox centre, a methadone clinic, a food bank in their backyard. So why should a low-income neighbourhood accept this logic? SFU professor Nicholas Blomley explains that 'the language of social mix serves to justify giving the right to space and property to those with wealth, and taking it away from those who are poor. Social mix is a strategy used to expand hierarchical structures and mask asymmetrical power… It is the wolf in sheep’s clothing.'” - Harsha Walia, “Vancouver Approves Chinatown Towers, Prices Out the Poor,” Vancouver Sun.

Random Thoughts and Links on a Holy Saturday

2011-04-23T10:08:00.000-07:00

Good Friday brought up a lot of thoughts in me. Holy Saturday brings more.

- I spent part of the morning pulling a red wagon full of large rocks through the DTES, and dropping them off in various locations. I got a lot of comments and funny looks. I felt a bit like the disciples who were sent to get an untamed colt for Jesus, and the strange questions they might have been asked. I felt foolish, but the good kind of foolish.

- Our church did an abridged Stations of the Cross walk around the neighborhood, stopping at different places to pick up and carry one of these rocks, and to read part of the crucifixion narrative and sing a short song. We stopped at the Courthouse, and we stopped in alleys. We ended at the beach at Crab Park, where we built a cross out of the rocks. This is where we will celebrate Easter tomorrow. Good Friday was the first service we did in this neighborhood, two years ago, before our "official" launch - this was our third Good Friday walk. I believe it's significant our community of faith began by acknowledging Jesus' presence with us in the midst of suffering.

- Power has been on my mind a lot lately, and I was struck again by Jesus' downward mobility - how he had to give up all control and make himself completely vulnerable to betrayal, pain, and death in order to conquer death and the powers of darkness. I was reminded that while following Jesus does bring life to the full, following Jesus will also sometimes - often - feel like carrying a cross. It will feel like failing. It will feel like death. The way of Jesus leads down before it leads up. I know today that are many things in me that still need to fully die, and one of them is my need for control, my need to feel like I'm succeeding and being effective and useful. Kathy Escobar always writes about this on her blog, and I love it.

- Yesterday afternoon, I managed to finally finish this book, A Million Little Pieces. I had been reading it for over a year, but only on Welfare Wednesdays, as a way to enter into the mindset of someone with a substance addiction. But I decided Good Friday was also a good day to read it. I know there's been a lot of controversy around how factual the book is, but I think it's quite valuable in terms of its vivid description of the mental, spiritual, and physical experience of addiction.

- I saw this video yesterday (linked off Kathy's blog), and really liked the analogy Brene Brown uses: a lot of people come to church or come to Christ looking for an epidural (a God and a community to take away their pain), and end up finding a midwife (a God and a community who sit with them in the midst of pain and help them push through it). Watch this for the rest of what she says.

- I've got this song running through my head, "You Won't Relent," about God's unrelenting love and desire for us to surrender everything to him.

- Last night, I watched Of Gods and Men. It's about a group of French monks who are wrestling with whether to stick it out at their monastery in Algeria during the unrest in the 1990s. It's a beautiful movie, again, about surrender, and the cost of giving yourself fully to God and to a community. Very moving. Trailer below.

Now it is Holy Saturday. I remember hearing someone once talk about Holy Saturday as a one-day mirror of the "waiting" space in which we find ourselves in salvation history: we are in between our own spiritual death and our full transformation and resurrection, in between the death of this earthly kingdom and the full coming of the next kingdom. It's a good challenge to wait well, to wait actively, to hold on to hope, when your Savior seems at times to be so absent, whether hidden behind a gravestone, or away, preparing a place for you.

Haters, do me a favor... stay out of our hood.

2011-04-04T23:12:00.000-07:00

This may be angrier than my typical blog post, but I really feel the need to get this off my chest.

There are suburban Christians who come into the DTES regularly to hand out tracts and to preach. I don't think this, in and of itself, is wrong. I am especially sympathetic with the ones who take the time to get to know the people to whom they preach. I remember talking to one woman in my neighbourhood whose journey to faith and freedom from addiction began thanks to a woman from Abbotsford who stopped by her tent in Oppenheimer Park every Friday night to give her a sandwich and a tract, and to talk to her.

But there are some "preachers" who are really starting to get on my nerves. My sources tell me you can find them at some of the Christian missions that make people to sit through a sermon before they serve them food.

I know these preachers second-hand. I hear their words come through the mouths of some DTES Christians I know.* It happens when the topic of gay people comes up. Or Catholics. (Two groups that are both represented in our community at Jacob's Well.) When these topics are broached (or sometimes, just out of the blue), these otherwise loving and accepting Christians start parroting the words and attitudes of these preachers. Attitudes of hate, prejudice, and exclusion, along the lines of: "God is angry at Vancouver and will judge us because of all the gay people," or, "The pope is the Antichrist."

I have no idea why you would come into a neighbourhood like the DTES and preach hatred and fear. Especially toward two groups who are so well represented in the DTES (for example, one study I read said that 40% of homeless youth in Canada identify their sexual orientation as the primary cause of their homelessness). Especially since they're also two groups who are quite involved in serving the DTES (I am thinking of the many lesbian feminists and Catholic sisters I know who work around here). And especially in the presence of marginalized people who have experienced their fair share of hatred and fear already in their own lives.

I see this preaching as spiritual abuse - abuse of people who are vulnerable for a variety of reasons, who easily accept your spiritual authority, who are less likely to question the things you say, and more likely to swallow it whole.

If you want to preach to my friends, read Jesus' sermons to people on the margins. They mostly contained words like "blessed are you." Or, "what do you want me to do for you?" Or, "go in peace."

Preach love. Preach welcome. Preach acceptance. Preach hope. Preach grace. Preach resurrection.

And if you feel the need to preach hate, please, do us all a favour and stick to the suburbs.

Rant over.

P.S.
On the topic of Christians, the church, and gay people, I highly suggest that everyone read a series of blog posts by my friend Wendy Gritter. She has a way of approaching the issue (especially on a denominational level) that I had never before considered - as a "disputable matter," a category used by Paul for a different issue in Romans 14. Believe me, you really need to check this out. Here's the link to the first in the series.

*Believe it or not, there are a fair number of Christians in my neighborhood. Many people don't realize this, and they come preaching under the assumption that everyone in the neighborhood is heading to hell and is in dire need of some fire insurance. In reality, a lot of DTES residents know God, know Him in a deep and tried-and-true way. A lot of them have wrestled through a lot more crap in their lives than I have, and the fact that they cling to God in the midst of it all often amazes me.

Poetry, for a change.

2011-02-26T16:40:00.000-08:00

At the 20^th Annual Women's Memorial March, February 14, 2011

I arrive late, joining

a sea of umbrellas

braced against a pouring sky.

Already the fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers

of some of those

three thousand women

missing and murdered

flow out through the Carnegie doors.

The elders lead a familiar refrain,

a depth of pain and pride

drawn by drums to the surface,

song spreading back through the masses

in sporadic echos.

I've only heard it

at protests and funerals

and I realize I don't know

which this is.

We march.

We take up space.

We stop, stand still.

Rain beads on hair, on beards,

drips off noses,

makes collective grief palpable.

We march again.

The police chief walks beside me.

From the edge, an elder blesses us,

thanks us for our solidarity.

When I leave,

I find myself running.

At the Pow Wow, February 15, 2011

My god-daughter sleeps through the drumming,

curled up in a ball,

pressed to my chest;

my red hair rests on her small, dark head.

She smells of smoked salmon.

Her father and brother and cousins surround their drum,

their beats pulsing as one,

resurrecting an ancient song.

I smile in pride.

These men are

all my relations,

all the more so since this dark-haired child

adopted me.

See, I say to her,

in the middle of the room,

our sisters are dancing! -

bells stitched into their coloured skirts,

feathers fanning the air,

stepping lightly,

faces strong.

Shawl-draped arms spread like wings

and draw us in.

Watch them all whirl.

Overwhelming.

There could be thousands of them.

P.S. The photos are not mine... I wish I had taken photos at these events!

Dreaming... of an end to violence and exploitation

2010-12-10T23:55:00.000-08:00

I had a dream last weekend. In my dream, someone placed a very small child in my arms. Something was different about this girl - at least, I think it was a girl. Her face had bird-like features: her eyes were enlarged, and her nose was shaped more like a beak. But as I gazed down at her, I was suddenly overwhelmed with love for this delicate, vulnerable creature. "You are... beautiful," I said to her. Hearing the sincerity in my voice, she looked up at me and whispered, "Does that mean I'll be safe?" An odd exchange. When I recounted it to Danice the next day, it sounded creepy, but I assure you, this scene was actually quite moving in the dream.

I don't often remember dreams, and when I do, there often seems to be a reason for it. I had been wrestling with a lot of insecurity, and as I prayed the next morning, I saw myself as the child in the dream, looking for security and safety, listening to hear God tell me I was beautiful and loved. I thought I knew why I had dreamed it... but there was more to come that day.

That afternoon, I attended a public forum about violence against women in my neighbourhood, the Downtown Eastside (DTES). Three female politicians, representing the three levels of government, sat on the panel - a city councilor, our MLA, and our MP. They gave brief speeches, but generally expressed a desire listen to us. There were other women on the panel who represented various womens' organizations in the neighbourhood.

As the people in the crowd began sharing their experiences and recommendations for curbing violence against women in the DTES, one of the first issues to come up was prostitution. I learned that almost every woman on that panel, including each of the three political representatives, supports the decriminalization (legalization) of prostitution.

This is a divisive issue in my neighbourhood. Good people who care about women and their rights come to opposite conclusions on the topic. I have often avoided talking about it, especially in conversation with other activists in the DTES, because I have wanted to focus on things we agree about - the need for housing, for example. But after sitting through this intense 3-hour public forum, and dreaming this dream, I am convinced that I need to write about this and explain where I stand right now, and why.

Many women spoke up at that forum. Some of them were friends of mine, like Michelle Miller (with REED - Resist Exploitation Embrace Dignity), and Trisha Baptie (with EVE - Experiential Voices Educating), two women for whom I now have even more respect. They spoke courageously and passionately, affirming that violence against women will not end until prostitution is abolished, not only because many of the missing and murdered women in the DTES have been prostituted women, but because prostitution itself is inherently violent. They spoke in favour of the "Nordic model," pioneered in Sweden, and now also in Norway, Iceland, and Bulgaria: decriminalizing the women being "bought," and instead criminalizing the men who "buy" them and the pimps who "sell" them. Since these laws were passed ten years ago in Sweden, prostitution has decreased significantly. In countries that have gone the other direction, by legalizing prostitution (e.g. the Netherlands, Australia), the sex industry has expanded, demand has increased, and so has sex trafficking (forced sex slavery, often bringing in women and children from other countries).

I had heard these arguments before, and I had heard the counter-arguments: this talk of abolition is just moralistic guilt-tripping; if two consenting adults want to have sex then we should let them; women should have the choice to do "sex work" and should be able to do so in a "safe" environment (a brothel).

But what I hadn't heard before were the voices of the First Nations women. I watched the subtle ways these marginalized women reclaimed their power at the forum, whether it was by standing up and standing behind one another in support, or speaking with their backs to the panel, addressing only the crowd, blocking out the politicians. Some were very controlled and composed, some were very angry, some were grieving, but they had one thing in common: every single one of them wanted to see prostitution abolished. The Aboriginal Women's Action Network (AWAN) opposed legalization of prostitution, and the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) had also just voted unanimously to oppose legalization (thanks for the edit, Trisha!). They spoke of the vast over-representation of Aboriginal women in street prostitution, and the ways that sexism, racism, and classism play into the violence inherent in all prostitution. They described prostitution as "the continuation of colonization - the colonization of our very bodies." Most importantly, they told stories. Stories about their sisters, their cousins, and their daughters, some exploited and abused, some missing, some dead.

As one Aboriginal woman spoke of her daughter, who had been raped not long ago, and had run half-naked down the street asking for help, only to have the cop called to the scene dismiss her as "another sex worker," my dream suddenly came flooding back into my head, and the connection between beauty and safety became clear. This half-naked girl became the vulnerable child in my arms, whose beauty was never sincerely acknowledged, who only wanted to be safe.

I oppose the legalization of prostitution, not only because I think sex is sacred and should not be for sale, not only because I think all women and men are made in the image of God and have inherent dignity and worth that is trampled when one uses the other as an object or commodity, but because I believe I am called to speak for and defend the most vulnerable people in our society, and I can't think of a more vulnerable group than low-income First Nations women on the streets, except perhaps young women and children trafficked for sex. If indeed there are women out there who are legitimately choosing sex work, and fighting for the right to do so, I call on them to legitimately choose another line of work for the sake of the vast majority of sex workers who are not choosing this work, but are enslaved in it, entrenched in it, or are tolerating the violence and degradation of prostitution as a means of survival.

I call on the men reading this to refuse to buy women, and to speak up about this. I call on the women reading this to protect and support their vulnerable sisters, and to speak up about this. I call on parents to teach their children about the dignity of every human being. I call on the leaders of my city, province, and country not only to criminalize the buying of sex, but also to raise the welfare and minimum wage rates, and to provide more support for low-income women, especially single mothers, so that no one is put in a position of needing to sell their body in order to make ends meet.

And I call on God for mercy, as I do every time I'm biking home from work at night and I see women waiting on the corners only a few blocks from my house. They are beautiful. I want them to know what it feels like to be safe, safe deep down, safe in every way.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be?

2010-11-09T18:34:00.000-08:00

I'm home sick today, which is a humbling thing. First, because my immune system is not all I was cracking it up to be. Second, because it's a reminder that even though I'm valued, I am not essential to the functioning of the world, or even of my workplaces. I can take a break. And it has been a good day to rest and let my body fight this cold.

So in the general vein of humility, I'd like to tell you a story about a recent time when I got tricked, conned, royally screwed over. In August, when it happened, I thought I'd never tell this story, for fear that it would show me to be far too gullible and naive to live and work in this neighbourhood. Danice knew better; she said it would make a great sermon illustration someday.

It was my day off, and I was riding a new bike to my friends' house on Commercial Drive, when I heard a man calling out in French, asking if anyone spoke French. I thought, "What a coincidence, I speak French." So I stopped to ask him what he needed. He told me that he was from Quebec, but was in town with his wife and child so that his wife could get surgery for breast cancer. He had been charged unexpected extra medical costs because the surgery was out-of-province, and he needed some money to buy some medicine and groceries.

Now, some of you are less gullible than me, and you would have said, "Sorry," and continued on your way. And there was a part of me that doubted his story. But a larger part of me wondered how coincidental it was that I rode along at that exact moment, and that I spoke French - I wondered if it was a divine set-up. And he seemed like a decent guy. So I said that I would help him out, but I needed to get cash from a bank machine.

Here was my first mistake. I had decided how much I would give him, but at the bank machine, he asked for a bit more, explaining that he wanted to pay me back. He was getting money wired to him from his brother in Quebec, but he needed some money to get his provincial health insurance card or driver's license printed, for ID, so he could collect the money in BC. I complied, and gave him the larger amount. Now you're thinking I was really gullible, and it's true. He played on my lack of knowledge about the healthcare system in Quebec, about wiring money, and about what kind of ID is needed. And I thought that it would be far more dignifying to allow him to pay me back, and support his family, instead of being the recipient of my charity.

So we set up a time to meet later that day. When we met, he told me that again, he needed more money - there had been other costs associated with the wiring. He showed me grocery receipts to prove he was spending the money well. At this point, I really wanted my money back, and it seemed there would be no way of getting it unless he could pay the fees associated with getting his ID. So, although alarms were going off in my head, I gave him a bit more.

To cut a long story (and awful day) short, that evening I ended up waiting at a skytrain station in New Westminster, with Danice by my side, with the Quebecois guy's "work keys" in my pocket as "collateral" to prove he would show up after the wire transfer. My hope rode a roller-coaster, swelling, falling, increasing, disappearing. Midnight rolled around, and no one had come to pay me back. I had been conned. I had lost $160, and I had also lost most of my faith in the honesty and goodness of humankind.

After a couple days of punishing myself for my own naivete, I realized I'd learned some stuff. And it was not, as Danice quipped, that "you should never trust a Frenchman."

Here's what I learned/remembered:

- I was not and am not perfect. I screw up, fall down, get back up, and I learn. I've got the "innocent as doves" part down, now I need to work on the "shrewd as snakes" part.

- I did not have to lose hope in all of humanity just because of one guy who conned me. We all lie and cheat at some point in our lives, and we all have our shining moments of generosity and beauty.

- It was ok to feel hurt. I was violated, betrayed, lied to, embarrassed, and put to shame. I was taken advantage of and sinned against.

- I was very grateful for my friends and roommates who cared for me and didn't laugh at me, even though my troubles were the result of my own poor decisions - Danice, who sat with me in my frustration, Chanelle and Julie who bought me ice cream, and Kat, who picked me up from the skytrain late at night.

- God would continue to provide for my needs. (In fact, although I told hardly anyone about this experience, I got unexpected financial gifts over the next couple months that totaled more than double the amount I had lost!)

- My money doesn't belong to me. I am only a steward of it. In being willing to give it away to someone in need, my heart was in the right place. However, I could have stewarded it better.

- The trouble came when it changed from a gift to a loan, when I started expecting the money to be paid back to me.

Let me explain this last point, because it has become very important as I think about my money in the context of my relationships. I think that in some cases, lending can be good and healthy, but only when I've already built a friendship with a person, and when I'm sure that even if they didn't pay me back, our friendship would survive. I've lent small amounts of money to friends, and my willingness to do so has proven my trust in them, and when they repay me, they have the chance to prove themselves as trustworthy. It has often brought my friendships to a new depth, even though there is some risk involved.

But in the vast majority of cases, when I give, I should give freely, not expecting anything back, especially if I don't know the person, and I should not give more than I feel led to give. It is good for people to have the dignity of paying back, but I should not give with this expectation. Jesus says as much: "If you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked." (Luke 6:34-35).

So apparently my reward will be great! Maybe it already has been great. I am sobered, humbled, and I have learned lots. Who knows, maybe it was a divine set-up all along - it might have been the only way for me to learn. I even feel like I've pretty much forgiven the guy, miraculously... and I've prayed that whatever his troubles, even if it's just the trouble of feeling the need to trick people to sustain himself financially, God will bring him to a place of honesty and relief from his burdens.

But watch out for him, if you're gullible like me. Chanelle has run into him again, around Commercial and 1st. She gave him a good talking to on my behalf. :)

On how God can bring good things from tracts, in backwards ways.

2010-09-30T23:57:00.000-07:00

I went to a local park to eat my lunch yesterday, one of the main hang-outs for low-income folks in the neighborhood. I was sitting on the bench, reading my book, when I saw a man out of the corner of my eye who didn't seem to fit the scene. He was wearing nicer clothes than anyone else (including me), and he seemed to be praying over two people on the bench across from me. Sure enough, when he was finished, he approached me and handed me a tract and a yellow lollipop. He asked if he could pray for me.

I'm not one to turn down prayer when it's offered, so I humored him and said yes. He launched into a generic prayer that seemed almost memorized. I guess he couldn't help but be generic, since he hadn't even gone to the trouble of asking my name. He did, however, make some assumptions about me in his prayer, evidenced in phrases like "Lord, free her from her addictions" and "Holy Spirit, convict her of her sin." Amen, brother. God knows I have addictions and sin I need freedom from, but something tells me they're probably not the ones he was imagining.

After wrapping up his prayer, he asked me two questions in rapid succession: "Do you have Jesus in your heart?" (pointing at his chest). "Yep." "Do you have a Bible?" "Yep."

This satisfied him, and without so much as a goodbye, he moved right along to a skinny girl dressed in a dirty, tattered t-shirt and sweatpants, who was sitting about five feet away from me. I watched as she accepted the lollipop and tract (though she threw the leaflet in the garbage as soon as he turned his back). She gently declined his offer to pray.

When the man had left the park, I caught her eye and said, smiling slyly, "At least he had lollipops."

She grinned, and said quietly, "I didn't have the heart to tell him I'm a practicing witch."

I laughed, imagining how the man would have responded. She continued with a story of what happened the last time she told a "Bible Thumper" the truth about her religious beliefs: "I literally got thumped with a Bible."

With that, we launched into a great conversation. I asked whether she practiced witchcraft in community with others, and she told me about her coven. She asked if I was a witch. (Somehow, this was a lot more refreshing than being asked if I "had Jesus in my heart.") I told her that I was a Christian, but I found myself suddenly reluctant to be grouped with the man we'd just encountered, so I awkwardly added, "maybe not quite the same kind of Christian as that guy."

We shook hands and exchanged names, and talked for twenty minutes. We talked about our belief systems, and how ancient they were, and what we had in common - a belief in the spirit world and that we were privileged to interact with it, a desire to act in love, to seek peace and light. She told me about growing up on the streets, and how despite all the pain and temptation she experienced, she never let her "Self" be compromised, "because all I really have is myself, and if I give that up, I might as well be f***in' dead." She told me how she gave up her crack habit for a cat habit - "it's expensive to take care of six cats, but not as expensive as buying crack every day." She showed me a beautiful marijuana pipe she'd found in a parking lot. She said she enjoyed talking to me, and hoped we'd see each other in the park again. I enjoyed talking to her, too. It felt like the start of a friendship.

And that's how the ever-surprising Holy Spirit, who has a pretty good sense of humor, brought an encouraging avenue to relationship through the most anti-relational, dehumanizing, well-meaning but misguided "drive-by" evangelism attempt I've ever personally experienced.

In hindsight, as I think about the guy who prayed for me, I wish I'd thought to ask to pray for him. I would have prayed that God would free him from his addictions, too. Of course, I probably shouldn't do that kind of thing unless I at least know the person's name. And maybe their favorite musician. And maybe I'd want to know whether he'd had difficult experiences in his life, whether he had pains he was dulling with his addictions. But by that point I'd probably feel like I had to share some of myself with him, too, and that might be too much vulnerability, and it might take too much time...

... and honestly, I have trouble interacting with people who have such different ideas from mine about sharing the Gospel. I'd rather not admit that we're part of the same family, that we're Christian brothers and sisters who need to learn to love one another in spite of our different approaches to evangelism. And besides, I'm far better at talking to homeless witches.

Yeah, on second thought, I think it was best to let him go on his way.

Complexities of Incarnation and Relocation

2010-08-21T16:15:00.000-07:00

Photo taken by my friend (and now neighbor) Hector, who stopped by on his walk yesterday.

Last night my roommates and I had a housewarming party. We have lived in our new place in Strathcona for two months now. I have had some chance to reflect on this move, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts.

First, the back story: I have been thinking about living in the DTES (DownTown EastSide) for over a year now. Our church was planted with the principles of CCDA (the Christian Community Development Association) in mind, the first of which is Relocation. Jesus put on flesh and moved into the neighborhood, instead of commuting back and forth between heaven and earth, and from the beginning, Jodi and I wanted to follow that incarnational path by moving into the neighborhood where the majority of our congregation lived.

Jodi moved right from the start. It took me a little longer. When we started the church, I was living in a great place on Commercial Drive with some incredible roommates, and I didn't think they would want to accompany me to the DTES, since their friends and churches were closer to Commercial. I told them my reasons for wanting to move, and we all sat with the idea for a while. On the evening when we planned to meet and make a decision, I lay in fetal position on my bed, cowering. I was so afraid that I would be forced to choose: either follow God's call to relocate, or live with my best friends.

To my surprise, and by the grace of God, all three of them were willing to move with me! I couldn't believe it. We started searching for a place to rent in the DTES area (or perhaps between the DTES and Commercial Drive, as a compromise). For a month and a half, we followed the very few leads we found on Craigslist, but the spaces were either unlivable for four people, or had already been scooped up by the many other people looking for housing.

Then one day, we got an e-mail back from a guy who said we could come look at a duplex in Strathcona, a neighborhood in the eastern part of the DTES. We did a rushed, five-minute walk-through, and filled out an application. He called a few days later and said that even though he'd had 30 other applicants, he had a good feeling about us, and we reminded him of his own daughters, so he wanted to let us have it! The rent was exactly the same amount as we were paying on Commercial Drive. The location was great from the point of view of my church work - it's at the intersection of the two streets where all the social housing buildings for families are located. It seemed (and still seems) like a clear gift from God.

The night before we moved in, we drove over to take another look at the place, and we stood in awe. It was beautiful. It was built in 2002, had a dishwasher (life changing for our household!), black appliances, two bathrooms (we all shared one bathroom at our other place!), laminate flooring, a large open-plan living room and kitchen, and a little porch. The landlord had paid to have it all re-painted and re-finished before we moved. For the same price, it was much, much nicer than our old place. Heck, it even had a white picket fence.

I walked around the empty house with mixed feelings. I was definitely happy that I didn't have to worry about my roommates making huge sacrifices to continue to live with me - they were so excited about the house! But it was so nice. When I had thought about moving to the DTES, I had expected to live more sacrificially, to have to give up some comforts and privileges and live more like my friends in the neighborhood. Instead, I was moving somewhere more comfortable and polished than our Commercial Drive space. Our street didn't even feel like the DTES - it felt like a nice little oasis one step removed from the DTES. Admittedly, only 48% of Strathcona residents are low-income, unlike 60-80% in the other neighborhoods that form the DTES. Some people don't even include Strathcona in their definition of the DTES, even though the city does.

I know that some of my self-sacrificial desires were idealistic and unrealistic, tied up in pride and the social-justice-image I wanted to project, with my dreams of a "Mother Teresa"-style martyrdom, suffering alongside the poor. But I genuinely did want my friends from the neighborhood to feel comfortable in my house, to feel like equals, to know that I want to be counted among them, to understand their reality and to be "in it" with them. And even more than that, I desperately didn't want to be counted among the "gentrifyers" in the DTES.

I only learned the word "gentrification" a couple years ago, when I heard it was happening in the DTES. It's what happens in lots of cities when developers buy property that has been used to house low-income people, and build market-type housing instead (in Vancouver, this is usually condos). Lower-income people can't afford these new places, and are often displaced or left homeless, with richer people gradually replacing them in the neighborhood. The lower-income folks who remain in the neighborhood find themselves surrounded by more expensive stores and security guards, and less of the services they depend on (because these non-profit services can no longer afford to stay either, with the rising property taxes). This process is dressed up and even defended with fancy words like "revitalization," "balance," and "social mix," but at its core it really represents a power grab by the rich, and does nothing to improve the lives of the marginalized. (The best summary of gentrification I've found is in Appendix A of CCAP's report "Assets to Action," read to learn more!)

This is where the complexity comes in. It's one thing to relocate and live "incarnationally" in a low-income neighborhood that is undesirable to most people, a "waste place," abandoned by the rich. But it's a much more complicated thing to relocate to a neighborhood that every developer wants a piece of, because they're running out of space to build in downtown proper, a neighborhood where hundreds sleep in shelters already because even the cheapest housing isn't cheap or available enough. I am the rich. Despite how poor I feel sometimes, I have a grad degree, I'm white, I have a supportive community around me, and I'm (relatively!) stable and employable. Does a person like me choose a house built in 2002? Who knows what was torn down so it could be built ... in "heritage style," of course, because appearances matter. Do I contribute to this gentrifying force, in form if not in spirit? Or does a person like me seek out something more like the older, low-rent places where my friends live, and risk taking away one more unit of the only housing they can afford? And since this low-income housing is mostly available in single-room form, does that latter option mean giving up my supportive community of roommates, who really are family for me in Vancouver? There are risks and benefits inherent in both options, both for me as a minister, and for this neighborhood in crisis. The DTES is a complicated puzzle, and figuring out how to follow in others' footsteps and live out my calling here sometimes makes my head spin.

In the end, my roommates and I have taken the housing that God has seemed to provide, grateful for the gift of it. And although I have been watching myself for the dangerous tendency to defend a choice that has meant increased comfort for me, I must say that despite the complexities, I have seen some good ministry benefits of this relocation in the last two months. I have loved running into people from church and Jacob's Well on the street as I walk or bike between home and work, or in the park as I read my book. It feels so much more relationally balanced to interact in everyday-life-situations, shopping at the market or running through the spray park, instead of interacting only in a programmatic way during my "work hours" in the neighborhood. I have loved how free some of my friends now feel to drop in at our house and say hi, and I've loved having kids knock on the door and ask to hang out and play video games on our PS2. Even in a short two months, we have had several meals and parties and hosted all sorts of folks here, combinations of friends from various backgrounds, and there has been a richness in these times. We are accessible, and our friendships are deepening. Also, I've been able to join a group of Strathcona folks who are fighting some of the gentrifying rhetoric of the Strathcona Residents Association and the Strathcona Business Improvement Association. If I am among the privileged of this neighborhood, I hope at least that I can use that power and privilege to stand behind and give voice to those who lack the power and privilege.

So there you go. I'm a Strathcona-ite, I have a beautiful family of roommates around me, and I'm grateful. I pray for God's blessing over this neighborhood that I now call my own, and for wisdom to walk through the complex questions that no doubt will continue to present themselves. Nothing seems very straightforward in this work or this life... but God is good, and He is merciful.

Blessed.

2010-07-26T14:45:00.001-07:00

I have wanted to write about a lot of things lately, but sometimes my thoughts have trouble forming themselves into the right format for this blogging genre. I have more often wanted to write sermons, and songs, and poetry, and articles, and chapters for books. I suppose I could post all of those kinds of things on here. But something stops me... a longing, a longing for my blog resemble my favorite blogs. They're the ones that give you a sliver of someone's life at a certain moment in time, like a photograph in words. You don't know the whole story, but you're grateful to just see that one moment with such clarity.

So, while realizing that a lot has happened since May, and a lot is happening in my life that would better be told in other formats, or perhaps over a cup of coffee with you, if I haven't seen you in a while... I will give you a snapshot of my "right now."

At this moment, I see my life ahead of me as one that cannot be anything but beautiful, because I am doing what I was created to do, and I'm doing it among some of the most beautiful people in the world. I feel such a deep resonance with this work, with pastoring in this context, even as I feel completely out of place on the surface level. It is an unspeakable blessing to have this deep knowledge that God has led me to do something I love and am gifted for, and I want to bless all of you with it - I pray, especially for those of my friends who are currently searching for work and calling, that you all find a place and a way to serve that so deeply fits who you are, even if it's unexpected, and even if it takes time. I am so grateful to those who helped me discern my calling.

I believe that this will also be a challenging and often difficult life, if the last couple of weeks, or the last couple of years, are any indication. If I remain in this neighborhood, which I would love to do for as long as possible, and if my life moves in a similar path as those of my colleagues in the neighborhood, I know it will be difficult.

I just attended the memorial of a man I never met, because I wanted to observe and learn how to lead memorials. I have a sense that this will be one of my primary pastoral tasks in the DTES. There were seven of us at the memorial. My friend, who led the service, had also never met the man who passed away. All of the other attendees worked in the SRO (social housing building) where the man lived. Only one had spent any significant time with him. We spent much of the time trying to piece together who this man had been. It was a privilege to be there; God was very present.

I don't know if you can bless someone after they're dead. I don't know if this dead man was in any way touched or affected by our short service, as one woman thought he would be. But I do know that blessing people, calling God's attention to them in some mysterious way, recognizing their inherent worth and dignity as image-bearers of God, praying peace over them, is one of the little-known benefits and joys of this pastoring thing. Especially when your job is to bless a bunch of beautiful people that others seem to curse, when your job is to name and call out the beauty in them. I think this amplifies the effect. It definitely amplifies the effect on me. I need to remember these times. I will try to write about them more often.

I have the best job in the world.

In closing, a quote from Marilynne Robinson in Gilead, which Amy Hunter told me to read (thank you!), which says it better than anything I know...

"There is a reality in blessing... It doesn't enhance sacredness, but it acknowledges it, and there is a power in that. I have felt it pass through me, so to speak. The sensation is of really knowing a creature, I mean really feeling its mysterious life and your own mysterious life at the same time. I don't wish to be urging the ministry on you, but there are some advantages to it you might not know to take account of if I did not point them out. Not that you have to be a minister to confer blessing. You are simply much more likely to find yourself in that position." (23)

A Franciscan Benediction

2010-05-19T13:31:00.000-07:00

My friend Lauren sent me this on the occasion of my graduation from Regent. It's a benediction from the Franciscan community. I think it's beautiful.

"May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done."

I'm grateful for friends like Lauren, and for those Franciscans who have walked this path before me.

Go fast to fare well

2010-03-24T22:54:00.000-07:00

Rarely does a whole neighborhood have a monthly rhythm to it the way the DTES does. For most residents of the DTES, their entire month is structured around today, welfare Wednesday, or as most residents call it, “cheque day.” If it’s not cheque day, they’re living in the two weeks after it, spending the money, or in the two weeks before it, longing for it to arrive. This is the ebb and flow of the neighborhood.

Many of my friends will stand in line for a cheque today. If they are housed in one of the SROs (the bottom rung of housing in Vancouver), they will receive the little that is left after their rent is deducted. This amounts to about $6-7 a day for a single adult. This doesn’t sound like much, and it isn’t. It’s even less when you’re in a cycle of addiction, and every cheque day presents another irresistible opportunity to spend all of your money feeding those cravings and numbing the pain (or paying back the debts you owe to the people who have funded your addiction since last cheque day).

Yes, the welfare system helps many people survive. But it also keeps many people poor, poor in every way. The only social role of someone on welfare is that of a passive recipient. In fact, even if they want to use their skills and gifts to help their communities, unless they are on disability, they cannot earn a dollar without that dollar being removed from their welfare cheque – in other words, a tax of 100% on earned income. BC is the only province in Canada that does not allow welfare recipients to keep some of the money they earn.

So my DTES friends are disempowered from reciprocally contributing to the well-being of the community and the city. They are denied the dignity of offering something. Their gifts and abilities are wasted, and they lose hope. Many of them develop a “taking” mentality, a sense of entitlement that can poison their worldview. And on the other side of the city, working taxpayers develop either a smug satisfaction in “helping the needy” through the welfare system, or a deep resentment toward the “lazy” people who are using their tax dollars to feed their addictions. None of this brings the rich and the poor any closer into relationship with each other, which I believe is the only way both the rich and the poor will feel loved enough and have enough hope to break out of addiction patterns, and to live more whole lives.

The system isn’t working. So today, I’m fasting.

I’m fasting to participate, in a backwards sort of way, in the monthly rhythm of a neighborhood I love, to acknowledge the hard realities and pray about how they are playing out the lives of my friends.

I’m fasting to stand in solidarity and experience a bit of the hunger many of my friends on the DTES have felt and continue to feel, hunger not only for good food, but for love, healing, freedom and belonging – hungers we all share as flesh-and-blood humans.

I’m fasting to remind myself of what it feels like to crave something, to get just a small taste of the cravings of my addicted friends, who face so much temptation today.

I’m fasting to remind myself that I’m only a community and a life-crisis away from being on welfare myself, that I’m only one pain-numbing attempt away from becoming an addict.

I’m fasting to remember that throwing money at people is not the same thing as being in relationship with people and supporting people face-to-face, life-on-life. We are all impoverished when we remain separate from one another.

I’m fasting to ask myself how I can become weak, how I can lay down my power, so that those who are now weak and oppressed can be empowered to take leadership and dream big dreams for their neighborhood.

I’m fasting because the welfare system is not helping anyone “fare” well, and it is a symbol of the ongoing class division and deep injustice in our cities.

I’m fasting to name the systems that keep my friends in bondage, and to pray for their freedom. In sum, I’m fasting to “loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke” (Isaiah 58:6).

If you have a heart for Vancouver and you long for justice, if you long to see the Kingdom of God break through, in the lives of both the poor and the rich, I invite you to join me in fasting and praying for justice on Welfare Wednesdays. Here are the rest of the dates for 2010:

April 21

May 19

June 23

July 21

August 25

September 22

October 27

November 24

December 22

Let me know if you want to join me in this – it would be good to know we’re in it together, and maybe we can even get together and pray on one of those days.

What about the Olympics?

2010-02-02T15:10:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

I know I've been away for a while, but I'm hoping to write more often now that I'm DONE SCHOOL! Forever! At least for a long time. Yep, I finished my MDiv degree (although I don't receive it until April). I'm settling into a new life of tri-vocationality: working as a pastor for "God's House of Many Faces," our church plant (which is almost one year old!), working at Jacob's Well, and doing some nannying to help pay the bills.

Some of you have been asking me if I'm excited about the Olympics, which start in Vancouver in ten days. When I first heard about the games four years ago, I was excited. But now, I'd put my mood down below "excited," somewhere around "battling cynicism." Recent polls suggest most Vancouverites feel the same.

Some Vancouver residents are upset about how much taxpayers will need to spend in the next several years to pay for the over-budget Olympics, and others are mad about the traffic challenges they'll face in the next few weeks, with road closures and thousands of tourists. But I don't make enough to pay many taxes, and I have a bike to ride to work with, so these things don't concern me much.

What do concern me are the abuses of power that have already come along with the Olympics. This has happened in the corporate sponsor takeover of the city, the multiplication of security forces (who seem to be mainly targeting protesters), the limits on free speech, and the many promises VANOC made about leaving housing for low-income and homeless people - promises they have already broken. For more facts on these issues, check out this site.

During the Olympics, I want to do something for my neighbors on the DTES. Because many of them live in 10x10 foot rooms, or in shelters, their "living room" is the street. But the streets are going to be packed with tourists, and although I hope it doesn't happen, security forces in past Olympic cities have "cleaned the streets" and moved "street people" away.

So, I'm planning on doing two things. First, I'll be spending extra time at Jacob's Well, where we'll be open long hours so that we can offer a "hang out" space, a refuge for our neighbors where they can feel welcome and safe if they don't feel that way on the street.

And second, I've decided to participate in the Legal Observer Program, put on by the BC Civil Liberties Association. With the slogan "watching the watchers," this program recruits volunteers to wear their bright t-shirts, walk around Olympic sites and downtown streets, and videotape and take notes on the activities of the police and security forces, keeping them accountable for their actions.

Here's why I'm doing this: because I believe that human beings who are given positions of authority are all tempted to abuse those powers, especially when situations are chaotic (as they will be at the Olympics) and split-second decisions are required. I cannot say what I would do if I were a police officer in some of these situations. But if I saw a brightly-dressed Legal Observer on scene as a reminder of the rightful limits of my power, it might help me make better choices. I want to make sure the rights of my DTES friends are upheld, and the decision-making skills of security forces are at their prime. Here's hoping it works...

Freedom

2009-11-14T15:57:00.000-08:00

A quote from Jean Vanier that describes where I'm at right now:

"There is a freedom that I sense exists but that I do not have.
I cannot always describe it but I do want it.
I sense I still have a long road to walk in order to reach this freedom.
I see the goal but I am not yet there.
I love and want it but sometimes I am frightened of the road I must take.

I am frightened of the disappearance of my walls of defense,
sensing that behind them there is an anguish and a vulnerability that will rise up.
I see that I still cling to what people think of me
and am fed by the way people love, want, and admire me.
If all that fell away, who would I be?
But that is where freedom lies, the freedom to be rejected,
if that is the path I am to take in order to live more fully.
Is that not the freedom that Jesus announces in his charter of the Beatitudes,
when he talks of the blessedness of those who are persecuted,
or when he says, "Woe to you when people speak well of you"?

(Becoming Human)

My name is Beth Malena, and I have bed bugs.

2009-08-21T23:03:00.000-07:00

At least my house does. Or did, hopefully.

It does feel like an admission, or a confession. I half expect people to take a step back when I say it. When Cara (an unlucky friend who is subletting at our place) was at a coffee shop, chatting on the phone with her mom about the bed bugs, two nearby strangers picked up their drinks and moved to a farther table.

And though I think they are overreacting, I don't really blame them. Having been through this awful experience, I would not wish it on anyone. I am trying to remind myself that it could have been much worse. For instance, I haven't had to get rid of furniture, like some of my friends who have been through this. Also, I haven't been bitten. Danice, Cara and I have not had bites - either we don't react to bed bug bites, or we have been avoiding them by sleeping on the porch futon. It was Lindsey who got attacked by the bugs, and possibly Lynn. Both of them are out of town now - how convenient! :)

After finding Lindsey's bites, we looked up bed bug pictures on the internet and performed our own search. We found nothing. Last Monday, we got a pest control guy to do an inspection. All he found was one bed bug shell, on Lindsey's bed. Because she had been traveling, he thought she had brought one or two in with her, but it was nothing serious - he recommended we just vacuum the room really well and wash her clothes. The next morning, I was laying my mattress back down on the bed post-inspection, and I found three live bed bugs crawling on it. I'm not going to lie: I cried. Danice calmed me down a bit, but we both knew this meant a lot of work and worry in the weeks to come.

If you've had bed bugs, you know the pre-extermination drill. Every scrap of fabric in the house (clothes, curtains, bedding, bags) must be washed in hot water and dried in a hot dryer for about an hour, then sealed in garbage bags. Everything else in the house, with the exception of things in the kitchen and bathroom, must be shaken over a bucket (to eliminate any hiding bugs or eggs), then sealed in garbage bags. All furniture is moved 6 inches from the wall, and the whole room must be vacuumed extremely well, including the mattresses.

Danice, Cara and I braced ourselves to tackle the belongings of five women. We decided not to wash Lynn and Lindsey's things, but we still had to bag everything up and get it out of their rooms. We started Thursday after work, at 5:00 pm. Almost 80 extra-large garbage bags (piled on two porches) and ten hours later (!), at 3:00 am, we finally had the house ready for the exterminator.

The most unexpected and difficult aspect of those ten hours was the constant mental battle. We had only seen a couple live bugs, but we knew bed bugs could hide almost anywhere, so we knew we had to follow the exterminator's instructions. But it's hard to keep shaking item after item into that bucket, and not see any bugs or eggs fall out. You wonder about the chances of them being in the item you're holding. You wonder about the chances of them hiding in things you've already bagged, things you perhaps didn't shake well enough. You recall stories of people who never succeeded in getting rid of them, after multiple extermination attempts, and you wonder if any of this will be worth it. You wonder if it would be simpler for humans and bed bugs to just learn to coexist. You wonder if that little brown thing over there is a bed bug - no, it's just a piece of lint. You wonder if they were just a figment of your imagination the whole time. And then you see a huge live bed bug saunter across your bed, flaunting its existence in your house, and your skin crawls and you feel like they're all over you. You don't want to be in your house one more second. Then, at 3:00, you go to bed exhausted and all you can dream about is... searching for bed bugs and putting things in garbage bags. Or, if you're Danice, you dream about a human-sized bed bug ringing the doorbell and moving into our house.

The pest control guy sprayed yesterday. I arrived home after the appropriate amount of time, smelled the spray, and wondered how those chemicals could be less harmful to my health than a few bed bugs. Our landlords (who are so understanding and wonderful!) let us hang out in their suite while our floor aired out. We're still running loads through the laundry. We're still sleeping on the porch. We're still living out of garbage bags, and will be doing so until the re-inspection in two weeks.

One of my coping mechanisms during the ten hours of cleaning was to force myself to find the positive. I thought of four benefits of this whole ordeal.

1. Our house is likely cleaner than it was when we moved in. I don't think we would have ever done such a thorough cleaning otherwise.

2. I've always thought I lived fairly simply, without too many possessions or clothes, but as we cleaned, I purged a lot of stuff, and plan to get rid of more when we un-bag. I hope my roommates also discover this urge to purge. :) Hooray for bed bugs for providing impetus toward simple living.

3. I can now sympathize with my friends who have felt stigmatized, contaminated, or unclean because of bed bugs. I felt dirty and ashamed even though I read that they have nothing to do with cleanliness - they are a big problem in the Downtown Eastside, but also in the high-end apartments in Yaletown, and many fancy hotels. I was amazed how much sympathy, advice and prayer I received from friends at church and at Jacob's Well.

4. I developed a new appreciation for my roommates, who kept me sane (Cara and Danice, I'm glad we all "hit walls" at different times, and I'm grateful for our fits of laughter!), and my landlords, for caring and footing the bill!

Well, my confession is over, and so is this experience, I hope.

Gotta go change the laundry!

Generally overwhelmed

2009-08-01T15:49:00.000-07:00

I want to write so many blogs right now but I don't know where to start. My head is full of half-formed thoughts, things that still need to be discussed, read-up on, challenged, refined, and put into sentences and paragraphs. This overwhelms me, especially because I have a couple of chances to teach in the near future, and I kind of want to know what I think before I teach other people! I am humbled by my own confusion, and my sense of the complexity of things.

In addition to my favorite topics of the year so far (eg. homosexuality and faith), my work this summer has opened up whole new doors in my mind. My first learn-to-pastor job is in a brand new church in the Downtown Eastside/Strathcona area of Vancouver, a church geared toward families, a church that meets outside in a park, a small church with no name and no money, but a lot of vision and a lot of love. Although I've worked in the neighborhood for several years with Jacob's Well (and continue to work there), the last couple of months have stretched me in very new ways. I've been through a cycle of intense emotions, which I try not to take out on my roommates. I fluctuate between intense despair in the "impossible" situation of the neighborhood and many people I know there, and crazy hope in the already-coming Kingdom of God. I've been hanging out with a lot of kids and learning from them. I've been trying to figure out what God is up to with this whole "church" idea in general, and more specifically in this neighborhood. I've been reading and thinking about so many issues: colonization and the past/present situation of First Nations people, dependency, generational cycles, trans-cultural church communities, the God who suffers, addiction and harm reduction, systemic evil, incarnational ministry, poverty and homelessness, worship with the least of these, and how mercy interacts with justice.

How do I as a white person pastor a church of primarily First Nations people when the white church has done so much injustice and caused so much suffering among First Nations people? How do I pastor in ways that give power away and break cycles of dependency and pain? Should I move into the neighborhood (right now I live 10 min. away), or would that be too much for me right now? Where is the Kingdom breaking through in the neighborhood? What does worship look like here? How do I best use my twenty hours a week? Is this the kind of place where I'm meant to serve long-term? These are only a few of the questions I've been asking. Maybe I'll blog about some of them once I get my head around them.

For now, you can read about our little church at this blog, which I will be contributing to regularly. Also, if you're interested in committing to pray regularly for me in this church-planting thing, and getting on a prayer e-mail list, please let me know.

Today for the Kingdom.

Christians and GLBTs - bridging the gap

2009-06-24T02:27:00.000-07:00

I’m doing something I’ve never done before – I’m participating in a synchroblog. If you’ve never heard of a synchroblog (I hadn’t!), it’s when a bunch of people all write blog posts on the same day on the same topic. This synchroblog is organized by New Direction Ministries, whose mission is to “bridge the gaps” between, and within, the Christian community and the gay community. I wrote earlier about New Direction in this post, and my respect for them has only increased since. Over fifty people (including Brian McLaren and Donald Miller - famous people!) are blogging their ideas about how to “bridge the gap” – please check out the full list of participating blogs here.

For eight months now, the number one question I’ve been thinking about and reading about and discussing with friends is this: How does homosexuality mix with the Christian faith? I began seriously asking this question in October when someone whom I deeply love came out as gay, but the question had already been raised in other friendships I’ve had with lovely GLBT people, and also in my efforts to figure out my own sexuality, which turned out to be less straightforward and more “fluid” than I thought. I now think this may be one of the biggest questions I will encounter as I begin my ministry as a pastor, not only because I am pastoring in a neighborhood with a lot of same-sex couples and families, but because the only thing many young people know about the North American church is that we are “anti-gay.” The church is becoming known above all for being against a group of marginalized people, people whom Jesus would be busy befriending and loving, considering how much time he spent with the “outcasts” of his day. We no longer look like Jesus. This, in my opinion, is a huge problem.

So how can we start looking more like Jesus? There are a lot of answers to that question. When I read the Gospels, I see Jesus building relationships with people very different from Him by initiating honest conversations on their turf. Lately I keep coming back to the apostle Paul’s three favorite nouns: faith, hope and love. They pop up everywhere in his letters, and they also defined Christ’s way of relating. I think these words are important as we think about how to build relationships between people of different sexualities and beliefs. (I will be primarily addressing the Christian community here, but I think these three words should define the conversation no matter your faith background.)

Faith. Faith is throwing your weight on something you can’t know for sure. Many would say the opposite of faith is doubt, but I prefer to think the opposite of faith is certainty, or perhaps indifference. Like many Christians, until recently, I had a vague certainty about how Christians should think of homosexuality. This was an inbred and unquestioned conservative view, which I came by too easily, due to both laziness and fear. When I started seeking out and listening to gay-affirming theologies, views I initially disagreed with, I was surprised to be thoroughly challenged by some of their arguments, so much so that right now, I am sitting on a theological fence on the topic of homosexuality. But even when I settle on one side of the fence, I know I will stand there lightly. I am continually sobered by this fact: Sincere, intelligent Christians disagree on the morality of homosexual behavior – and not just the kind of people who say ‘Lord, Lord,’ but real Christ-followers, the fruit-producing kind (Luke 6:43-49). I am privileged to know real, fruit-producing Christ-followers who are "practicing" gays (talk about bridging the gap - these people embody the bridge!) I am reminded that none of us has a corner on the truth, and this means that we must be humble in conversation, listening before we speak, expecting to hear truth in the most unlikely places, to be challenged by the most unlikely people (see 1 Cor. 1:27-29). Uncertainty is scary, but it is honest. We must start by admitting that we could be wrong. In the end, I’ll throw some of my weight (faith) on what I think about homosexuality, but I’ll throw much more of my weight (faith) on the good news that Christ lived and died to reconcile a broken world to God, because this is the center of my life. My salvation does not depend on what I think about homosexuality. Christians who think differently from me on homosexuality are still my brothers and sisters in Christ, because they are on a Christ-led journey of healing and redemption, as I am. I throw my weight on Jesus, not on being “correct” on one ethical issue.

Hope. Hope is grabbing hold of a scandalous promise in the middle of suffering and seeming failure. Many would say the opposite of hope is despair, but I prefer to think the opposite of hope is idealism, or perhaps cynicism. Idealism says that friendship with those who disagree with me will be easy; I will soon convince them to see things the way I see them, they will be forever grateful, and we will live happily ever after. Cynicism says that we will never fully accept or love those who are different, we will only suffer, so we should limit our community to people who look like us and think like us. Hope, on the other hand, says that relationships with people who are very different from us involve getting hurt, hurting others, sharing in people’s suffering, loving in a costly and self-sacrificing way, and living with tension and mess – but in the end, both my friend and I will be transformed to look more like Christ. Both of us will see the kingdom break into our lives in fresh ways. To put it another way, idealism skips over the crucified Christ, and cynicism keeps the crucified Christ in the ground, but hope wades right through the mess and pain of the crucifixion clutching the incredible truth that Christ conquered death and now lives (!) to bring His kingdom in full. Jesus willingly waded into a mess by calling both Simon the Zealot and Matthew the Publican, sworn enemies, to be in his band of disciples. What crazy hope he had for these men! I think that we need to have more hope in the power of Christ to break down walls that divide us, and give us love for people who are very different. We are called to join Christ in His hope-filled kingdom work, pursuing justice and shalom, adopting a confessional stance in recognition of the ways the church has failed to love (or even spurred on the hate of) gay people, and advocating for the rights of our GLBT friends.

Love. Love is laying down your life (your priorities, your time, your opinions, your rights, your reputation) for the sake of your friends, or what’s more, for your enemies. Many would say the opposite of love is hate, but I prefer to think the opposite of love is fear. John said that there is no fear in love, in fact love drives out fear (1 John 4:18). Paul said that love is the “greatest of these,” and in the same vein, I think it may be the greatest way to look like Jesus in our relationships: moving from relating out of fear to relating out of love. We are afraid of so many things: fear of stirring up controversy in the church that could lead to division; fear of “slippery slopes” or societal breakdown; fear of offending people; fear of uncertainty; fear of our views being misunderstood by others; fear of our own fluctuating sexual identity or purity. These fears lie at the heart of prejudice; they drive judgmentalism, preventing us from seeing all humans in the image of God. We must learn to look at every person as Jesus does, with unconditional love, from the most flamboyant participant in a pride parade to the most vindictive participant in a “God hates gays” rally. This is no touchy-feely warm-fuzzy love; as Dorothy Day says, “Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” She also says, “Love is the measure by which we shall be judged.” It is our mission. The greatest commandment is not “love God and convert your neighbor,” or “love God and ensure your neighbor’s theology is correct;” the greatest commandment is “love God and love your neighbor” (Luke 10:27). It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convert and transform our friends, and to convert and transform in our own lives. Our job is to watch what the Spirit is doing and join in where He asks us to, always relating out of love instead of fear.

I pray every day for a makeover, a personal makeover and a church-wide makeover: I pray for the grace to look more and more like Jesus, who is alive in us, so we can bridge the gap the way He did – through friendships and conversations built on faith, hope, and love. I want us to risk “ruining” our reputations because of the people we love. It’s a dangerous and messy road, but it’s the road Jesus chose, and I want to follow Him.

For anyone who’s interested, I recently wrote a paper for school (Regent College) about the pastoral care of people who are same-sex attracted, in which I explore some of these ideas in more detail. I’m happy to e-mail it to anyone who wants to read it - just let me know.

Now go check out some of the other people’s blogs!

I have too much money.

2009-06-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

"I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength." (Phil. 4:12-13)

"And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus." (Phil. 4:19)

On Wednesday, I found out that I would be making $3000 less at my two jobs this summer than I had originally thought, due to misunderstandings and cutbacks. God was gracious, because He also gave me overwhelmingly fulfilling experiences that day, confirming that I'm working where He wants me to work. I went home and looked at my bank account and budget. I saw that I'd still have enough to get through my last semester of school, but I wouldn't have much money going into 2010. I had wanted to save up some money for next year, because I plan on continuing my non-profit and pastoral work in the Downtown Eastside, the poorest neighborhood in Canada, likely without a very stable income.

I let this stew in my brain for a while, alternately worrying and pushing worries out of my mind. But on Friday morning, while I was reading a Psalm that had nothing to do with money, everything changed. Out of the blue, this thought ran through my head: "You have too much money." And then this: "You don't need to make more money - in fact, you need to get rid of more."

These ideas definitely didn't come from me, because I had been thinking the exact opposite. I think God was trying to show me that in my worrying, I'd been buying into the same old myth: that my security was in my savings.

I think we all know that money is not bad in and of itself, but it sure can tempt us: greed, over-spending, stinginess, failing to tithe, frivolousness, avarice. I consider myself a pretty generous person, I hate shopping, and I probably err on the side of under-spending rather than over-spending. But like most North Americans, I succumb constantly to a far more subtle and sinister temptation: to treat money as my safety blanket, maybe even my savior, and to depend on money for future well-being rather than on the God who sustains my life.

Maybe it takes is a recession for me and many others to recognize the folly of so-called "financial security." Maybe as investments depreciate, as the money we buried in the bank accounts loses its value, we will realize that we need something (Someone) far more secure and unchanging to depend on, and we'll start throwing the weight of our future plans and hopes on Him. Maybe we'll realize that everything we have is on loan to us, and we'll start being more thankful for it and open-handed with it. Maybe we'll learn Paul's secret for living in plenty or in want, and we'll actually thank God for the recession! As Wendell Berry puts it, "When I hear the stock market has fallen, I say 'Long live gravity! Long live stupidity, error, and greed in the palaces of fantasy capitalism!'"

Before you think I've become a communist, or St. Francis (though I'm not sure they're such bad things to be), I will clarify one thing: I don't think it's wrong or sinful to save money. I'm just realizing that the majority of people on this planet don't even have the privilege to save money. I think God calls us to wisely use the resources He's given us in North America, and sometimes this means saving, but probably it means giving more often than we think. When I was a kid, my parents saved money that enabled my siblings and I to study at university, and I'm grateful for that. Now, my parents may be moving to Kenya, and I'd like to start saving money so I can fly to visit them. But if I start clinging and worrying and depending on money to get me to Kenya instead of the God who wants both to reunite families and to teach me to trust Him, I've slipped again.

My friend Joyce says that if we buy something, we should be willing to redistribute it to someone who needs it more than us, if God asks us to do so - after all, it doesn't really belong to us; it belongs to God, and God may want to challenge how much we really believe this. I think the same applies to our savings - if God wants us to use our money in a different way than we had planned, or if He wants to challenge our dependence on our savings, to challenge us to live more simply, then we need to listen and welcome His guidance. I can't assume He's saying the same thing to you as He's saying to me, I can only tell you my story.

I've talked to some friends and co-workers in non-profit and pastoral work who have had to live far closer to broke than I ever have, and they have such amazing stories of how God was faithful to provide for them when they needed it, and He often used strange and unexpected means. Their faith increased because it was tested, because they clung to the God who provides. At first, I saw this as irresponsibility - maybe they should have saved more so they wouldn't have to ask so much of God. Now, I crave these same chances to learn and grow in faith.

So I'm thinking about getting rid of some of this money, before it whispers to me yet again and convinces me that it can secure my future. Anyone need any money?

"Busy" - er, I mean, "Holy" Week

2009-04-10T09:38:00.000-07:00

Turns out that being in a creative writing class takes up all of the time and writing energy you would otherwise pour into a blog...

Easter weekend is possibly the busiest weekend of the year, and likely will be the busiest for the rest of my working life. I do look forward to next year, when I will not have to juggle writing final papers with planning and playing in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday services.

Yep, we've got all those services going on. Someone at Jacob's Well, upon hearing all of these liturgical celebrations at our church, asked me what denomination I'm from. When I said, "Baptist," he seemed shocked. We aren't really known for our attention to the church calendar.

Last night was our Maundy Thursday service in Kits. We walked to six different places in Kits that represented brokenness in the neighbourhood, including the alcove where a homeless man died last fall, and the Georgia Straight offices (the last several pages of that newspaper, advertising "massage" and "escort" services which essentially pimp women, make the newspaper $2 million a year). Each place was linked to one of the "shadows" or "tenebrae" of Jesus' journey to the cross: desertion, accusation, crucifixion, etc. We talked about the brokenness, read Scripture, prayed, and sang a short song. We picked up a large stone that had been placed at each spot, and carried them to the final spot, under the Burrard Bridge, which represented the tomb.

This afternoon, we're doing a similar service in Strathcona, which is where my new church will be, as of this week. Though we've invited a lot of guests, and this feels nothing like a "launch", I am conscious that this is our first time worshiping together as a church plant. Jodi wisely pointed out that we couldn't "launch" on Easter without first walking through Good Friday together - you can't skip over the cross. So we will name the brokenness in that neighbourhood as our first act of worship together. We may have a Native drummer join us. Gladys will serve us bannock and deer stew.

Saturday night, we will hold a vigil in Kits, under the Burrard Bridge, where we laid our tombstones. We will sing songs about waiting and longing and disappointment and fear, marking the space in between Good Friday and Easter.

Sunday at sunrise, we will celebrate the resurrection in Strathcona Park. Sunday at 9:30, we will celebrate the resurrection at Kits Church, and that congregation will officially "commission" and send us to Strathcona for the church plant. All of this back-and-forth, overlapping, will hopefully help me to transition between the two communities, though it still feels so sudden and overwhelming. I am excited, and I am anticipating good things, but I also know that church planting is hard and requires much patience.

On top of this, I must finish three papers and one creative writing portfolio. And this seems to be the week for visits from Saskatoon, because Jordan, Evan, Anna, and the Emmanuel youth mission team are all coming to Vancouver in the next few days.

It is a rich time! I am praying for sunshine (though rain is forecast for Easter - which would make it the fourth rainy Easter day I've had in Vancouver). I am praying for energy and imagination, enough to live in the present moment and walk through this weekend faithfully, alongside the disciples.

How I've stopped sucking at praying.

2009-02-12T09:45:00.000-08:00

Hey, only a three-month hiatus since the last time I blogged. Not bad.

The problem for me at this moment is that blogging is not on my to-do list. That makes it a dangerous thing to be doing right now, because I'm not sure I even have enough time this week for everything that's actually on my to-do list (most of which involves a class I'd prefer not to talk about called History of Doctrine. Argh.).

I really do need "to do" a blog, because I have something to say, but also because I need to start writing again. Rather, I need to get into the habit of writing. I am starting a class called "Creative Prose," and I will need to be cranking out the non-fiction in large quantities and high qualities very soon. Time to prime the pump.

So today I was thinking about prayer. I recently realized that I'm not very good at it. I've been praying my whole life, and it's taken me all 25 years to figure out and confess that the majority of what I've labeled "praying" has actually been one of two other things: talking to myself, or talking to other people with my eyes closed.

I am being too harsh with myself? I don't think so. It's not that I don't think God has heard me - I believe He's patient and merciful and listens even when I'm messing it all up. But it's time for change.

The problem is that I get into these praying "modes." When I'm praying by myself, like I do almost every morning (and try to do at other points in the day, though I have far to go on the "pray continuously" front), I slip into this habitual mode of mentally reviewing yesterday and today (along with all the good and bad things I've done and all the problems I can anticipate), mentally scrolling through close friends and family (especially those with problems - ha) and trying to think of anything or anyone else I've promised to pray for or "should" pray for. In a process that's somehow simultaneous with this mental review, I sort of "google translate" all of this into a prayer in the 2nd-person. All this time, my main focus is on analyzing and phrasing my desires and emotions and issues, and phrasing my interpretation of the issues other people have. My head is talking to itself, even as my mouth (or mental mouth? I don't always say my prayers out loud...) is trying to aim it all in God's direction.

And when I'm praying with other people, it's worse. I may have already written a blog about this several years ago, because it's always bugged me. Praying with groups of people is hard! Most of the time I'm trying to listen and pay attention to other people's prayers without my mind drifting off to a thousand other things. This takes a lot of energy. Then when it's my turn, I slip into another "mode." This time the mode is called: "try to sound articulate, reflective, and even a little bit creative as you cover all the bases of this prayer "item;" if you're praying at the beginning of a meeting, show that your focus is in the right place; if you're praying at the end of a meeting, try to cleverly sum everything up; definitely don't say anything heretical, and definitely make it "flow" nicely out of your mouth - don't pause too long in the middle or someone may think you're finished and interrupt you." I know it's not all about how many people go "mmm" in agreement while you're praying, but come on, it feels good, doesn't it? It can become a game. And I'm actually pretty good at the game of praying in public, at talking to people (trying to present myself well to people) even as I'm aiming the words in God's direction.

It's not that I try to slip into these modes. Usually I really intend and want to talk to God. And I'm not even very aware of how often I'm not talking to God.

That's my confession. But here's the good part... I've had somewhat of a revelation recently that is helping me actually talk to God when I pray. Ready for it? Here it is:

Jesus is a person and He is alive right now.

Earth-shattering, isn't it? Praying is about talking... to... a person! Haven't I taught this a million times to cabins of girls at camp and Sunday school classes? So why am I still talking to myself or my peers when I pray? Why is it so hard to talk to Jesus?

Well, I can't see Jesus, and I can't usually hear Him audibly, and this makes talking to Jesus different than talking to any other person. When I'm having coffee with a friend or even talking to my sister on the phone, I don't have to remind myself they're there. But with Jesus, I have to continually remind myself that He is there, seeing and hearing me. I have to get the conversation out of my head, or out of the group I'm in, and put all my focus on someone I can't see or hear. This is incredibly hard! Why don't we talk about how hard this is? Why don't we encourage each other? Why don't we stop in the middle of our group prayers and make sure we're all still talking to Jesus?

Jesus is a person and he's alive right now.

It's helped me to remember that Jesus is alive right now. Too often I just picture him 2000 years ago, in some Middle Eastern setting, instead of picturing a present-day person. It's helped me to remember that Jesus has a human body (a resurrected human body, but human nonetheless). So often I turn him into some spiritual, intangible figure. But Jesus didn't just disappear when He ascended. Check out this quote from a book I've been reading:

"As in the incarnation
we have to think of God the Son becoming man
without ceasing to be transcendent God,
so in his ascension
we have to think of Christ as ascending above all space and time
without ceasing to be man
or without any diminishment of his physical historical existence...

In the incarnation we have the meeting of man and God in man's place,
but in the ascension we have the meeting of man and God in God's place,
but through the Spirit these are not separated from one another." (Thomas Torrance)

As a friend of mine put it, it's not so much about "What Would Jesus Do?" as it is about "What Is Jesus Doing?" Because He's still alive and working and serving as our High Priest and making our humanity present to God - at this very moment! This helps me tremendously. I can picture Him - I can keep Him in my mind's eye. The Spirit makes Him present to me where I am.

So I have a new practice when I pray. I do some "centring prayer," inspired by Tony Campolo, yoga, and the Catholic literature I've been reading lately. I breathe, I quiet my own mind, I repeat Jesus' name to focus myself on Him as a living, breathing, alive-right-now person. I try to listen for Jesus and become aware that He is listening to me (Mother Teresa talked about this). We both listen for a while. I wait until I'm fully aware of my own smallness, my own weakness, my own inability to even pray without His help. I wait until I'm fully aware that Jesus is there with me, that the Spirit has made Him present to me, that my friend and Lord is sitting across from me. Only then do I start speaking, and I speak as I would speak to any person sitting there. It doesn't flow nicely out of my mouth, and I say some silly things, and I forget a lot of things (as I do in most conversations). My main goal is to be constantly aware that He's there, listening. Once that awareness slips away, once I slip into merely talking to myself, I stop and do more centring prayer. It's a slow process, learning to really talk to someone you can't see! But it's good.

I haven't tried it too much with group prayer yet - that's the next step. I'm pretty sure I won't sound quite as polished as I have in the past. But I'm very excited! I think this is going to deepen my relationship with God. How about you? Any thoughts on prayer?

The universe, according to Beth (rather, Denis Lamoureux). Ha.

2008-11-16T13:41:00.000-08:00

Anyone still reading my blog? I have neglected it yet again.

If you've ever wanted to know about the way I currently make sense of Creation and Evolution, as a biologist-turned-seminarian, I would like to lay that out for you in this blog entry. (Warning... this is going to be long.)

To do so, I will be summarizing a fantastic lecture I heard last week called "Evolutionary Creation," by Denis Lamoureux. Denis is a professor of "science and religion" (the first tenured Canadian prof in this field) at St. Joseph's College at the University of Alberta, and he has three doctoral degrees: dentistry, theology, and biology. This guy knows his stuff! And he delivered a killer lecture, explaining things in a way that made both the "science" and "theology" sides of me go "Yes!". For a fuller description of his view, you should read his book, called "Evolutionary Creation," even though I haven't yet (I'm waiting for it to go on sale!). The best part is that Denis used to be a staunch young-earth creationist, and set out early in his education to study how he could disprove evolution... so he knows all sides of this issue.

So here we go, a description of Evolutionary Creation (which is also sometimes known as Theistic Evolution - but like Lamoureux, I think the emphasis should go on "Creation").

In summary: "The Father, Son and Holy Spirit created the universe and life through an ordained, sustained and design-reflecting evolutionary process."

Ready?

1. Evolutionary creationists assume these things as true:
- God is the Creator of the universe.
- The beautiful, intricate design of the universe points to its Creator.
- God is a personal God who has always been and still is intimately involved in creation.
- The universe was planned, and has a purpose (ie. It is teleological).
- The Bible is the Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit.
- There is overwhelming support for the theory of evolution. It has never been falsified (though it easily could be). It has great explanatory power (It makes sense of the world!)
- It is possible for creation and evolution to come together, for God to create using an evolutionary process.

2. How do we interpret information about the universe in the Bible? The core assumption of most young-earth creationists (whether they recognize it or not) is that of "Scientific Concordism": that God revealed scientific facts in the Bible thousands of years before their discovery by modern science. (For example, they believe that the Bible suggests that the earth is about 6000 years old, and think that this should be confirmed by our present-day geological studies.)

I do not believe in scientific concordism. Instead, I believe that when the Bible was written, the Holy Spirit explained things in a way that made sense to the people at the time. For example, most Ancient Near Eastern peoples understood the universe as consisting of three "tiers." Tier 1: the waters above the earth. Tier 2: the firmament (the hard dome of the sky, on which the sun, moon and stars are fixed). Tier 3: the waters under the earth, that come up as oceans and seas. Here's a picture.

It's easy to see how they would have thought this - you look up and you see blue, and rain falls from up there, so why not assume there is a whole sea above the sky, that drips down when God opens up "the floodgates of heaven"? But I don't think there's anyone who believes this today - no one is trying to prove that there's a vast body of water above the sky, or that the stars are fixed points on a dome. Today, we accept the findings of science about the water cycle, and the earth moving around the sun. YET the Bible does not! It speaks in terms of the ancient, three-tiered universe! Look at Genesis 1:6 - "And God said, 'Let there be an expanse between the waters, to separate water from water.'" God also fixes the sun, moon and stars in this "firmament". He doesn't seem to fret that this is not a scientifically accurate picture of creation - he doesn't try to explain the water cycle or the turning of the earth. (Also see Gen. 7, Ps. 19, Ps. 104, Job 37, Mal. 3...). God does not fret about communicating the exact mechanism of creation... It very well could have happened by evolution.

3. Does this make the Bible untrue, or make God a liar? No, it makes God a good communicator, who accommodates to the limited knowledge of his hearers, just like any parent explaining to a toddler where babies come from! God is not trying to communicate science - the message here is theological - the fact that the universe was created by a sovereign God who made it "good," that humans were made in God's image, they sinned, and faced judgment. Lamoureux calls this the "message/incident principle of hermeneutics." The "important stuff" (the inerrant, infallible message) is packaged in the ancient "creation narrative" format of the day, which is poetic in form (I've learned a lot about the literary genre of Genesis 1-11, and how this story resembles and differs from Babylon and Egypt's creation narratives. Ask me for more info if you want it.) This "story-packaging" assumes ancient science and literary features. So although creation appears complete and quick (6 days) in the Bible, the Holy Spirit may be accommodating to ancient science (like the 3-tiered universe), or this may be a literary device, to condense the story into a week. The "packaging" isn't scientifically accurate, but this doesn't contradict the inerrancy of the Bible, because the Holy Spirit didn't accidentally slip up or make mistakes... this was His intended vessel for His message. At any rate, the presence of ancient science in the Bible as the "vessel" or "packaging" for the theological message should not limit or "disprove" our science today, as we try to figure out more about how our universe works.

4. So what does this mean for the question of human origins? If Genesis 1-11 is a poetic story written to explain a theological message about life and origins, what about humans, and what about Adam and Eve? The genre suggests that Adam and Eve are characters in the story, representative of humanity, not literal human beings who existed. It's easy to see why the Hebrew people would use two "original humans" in the story - in their perception, humans certainly seem to come from humans, who come from humans, so there must have been two original humans that started everything off - the story should be about them. The evolutionary data shows a different picture of human "creation"... between 5-8 million years ago, an ancestral species diverged into "hominids" (human-like species) and the species that produced the great apes. Gradually, starting about 250 000 years ago, Homo sapiens emerged as a distinct species from the other hominids.

This has been the hardest part of "evolutionary creation" for me to figure out and accept. I have trouble letting go of the idea of a literal Adam and Eve. Why? I suppose there are two main ideas for which Adam and Eve seem crucial: the image of God, and original sin. These are two things that definitely distinguish us from chimps (even though we are 99% genetically similar to them). But if humans developed gradually, instead of being suddenly formed from clay, when did we "get" the image of God? Was it 250 000 years ago, when we diverged as Homo sapiens? Or 50 000 years ago, when we started getting a lot better at using tools? And when did original sin enter the picture?

Some evolutionary creationists respond by essentially trying to keep Adam and Eve: humans evolved gradually, but at some point, God bestowed His image on two hominids, and they were the ones who first chose to sin. Others believe there were many Adams and Eves upon which God bestowed His image, and they all sinned. These two views are called "punctiliar monogenism" and "punctiliar polygenism." Lamoureux says that holding these views is similar to accepting modern-day astronomy for the most part, but tacking on the idea of a "firmament" with "waters above" from the 3-tiered universe. It's illogical.

Instead, Lamoureux suggests a "gradual polygenism." In other words, the image of God and original sin were not suddenly bestowed, but gradually and mysteriously manifested themselves as humans developed. This may sound like a cop-out, but Lamoureux points out that "mystery" is a valid biblical category. We don't pretend to understand the mysteries of the Trinity or the Incarnation... why should we expect to figure out exactly how the image of God or original sin played out in ancient human history?

Lamoureux used an analogy that was VERY helpful for me, to show me that this could very well be gradual and mysterious: the analogy embryonic development. When you developed in your mother's womb, at what point were the image of God or original sin "imparted" to you? Was it at the moment of fertilization? Did you get half the image of God from your dad's sperm and half from your mom's egg, and half original sin from each, too? (Keep in mind that over half of fertilized eggs don't survive the first week of pregnancy.) Maybe it was bestowed on you at the 2-cell stage? Or when you started to move? Or when brain activity appeared? A punctiliar (single point in time) understanding seems arbitrary here, especially since our physical embryonic development is so gradual. God doesn't jump in and tack on a fully-developed arm; we develop gradually as part of an ordained and sustained process, one that is mysterious in many ways, especially in terms of image of God / original sin (morality). Yet we have trouble accepting that this could parallel overall human development through history...

5. What about the belief that death entered the world through sin? If we were to take Genesis as reporting scientific or historical fact, we would agree that suffering and death are the consequences of Adam and Eve's first sin. The fossil record raises a problem with this belief. It seems that many, many creatures died (and suffered) before humans ever appeared on earth. It seems that God ordained that death (possibly even suffering) would be part of his "good" (note he did not say "perfect") creation. Animals did not suddenly switch from vegetarians to carnivores after humans sinned! (This has also been something difficult for me to accept, and I'm still wrestling through the implications.)

So what do we do with the fact that Paul seems to accept that Adam & Eve were historical humans, and their sin brought physical death into the world (a "cosmic fall")? 1 Cor. 15:20, Rom. 5:12, and Rom. 8:20-22 seem to suggest this, and many people use Paul to disprove everything we've been talking about. Lamoureux calls this the "Conferment argument": If Paul believed Adam was historical, he was. If Paul believed one man and one woman sinned, bringing about a cosmic fall, then this had to have happened.

The problem is, as Lamoureux points out, there's something else Paul seems to believe, and that's our good old friend, the 3-tiered universe. See, for example, Philippians 2:10-11, where "every knee will bow... in heaven, on earth, and under the earth" - this is summing up the three tiers, in order to say "in the whole cosmos". Paul was operating with an ancient geology and astronomy. But we don't seem as eager to use the "conferment argument" here... we don't say "If Paul believed in a 3-tier universe, then it's true." So why can't we also say that Paul was operating with an ancient idea of biology, origins, and the origin of death (which logically, for Paul, can only come after the original creation of life in Adam and Eve.) This is another "vessel" / "message" passage. We can accept Paul's "message" that sin entered the world, all humans sin, God will judge sin, Jesus died for sinful humans, rose physically, and offers the hope of eternal life... but this doesn't mean we have to also unquestioningly swallow the "vessel" of a literal Adam and Eve, or that their sin caused a cosmic fall and the origin of physical death.

Ok, that's about it. I hope I explained this well. Overall, I actually think it's crediting God with a lot more power, wisdom, and intelligence to say that He crafted an evolutionary system that would eventually produce all of these beautiful and diverse creatures, including humans, without further supernatural creative intervention (though he remains intimately and providentially involved in this creation), instead of saying that he had to repeatedly intervene with further spontaneous creative acts after "getting the whole thing going."

I'm not pretending this is a perfect system of integration. I know full well that it challenges the way we usually read the Bible (the "message" and "vessel" system could get you into trouble depending on how far you push it.) I'm just saying this is what makes the most sense of everything I know of Biology and Theology, and enables me to integrate these two sides of myself. Along with Lamoureux, I think that it's shameful that an exclusively literal reading and teaching of the Bible, especially Genesis, has led so many educated Christians to abandon their faith, and has presented an insurmountable obstacle to faith for other educated people, who want to explore the God thing, but don't want to check their brains (or their understanding of science) at the door.

So, for those of you who have actually finished reading this... What do YOU think? What challenges YOU most? Is any of this helpful?

Worth checking out!

2008-09-05T15:40:00.000-07:00

Hi! I know, it's been a while, and once again, much has happened, including an excellent visit from my whole family a couple of weeks ago. But instead of back-tracking, I want to jump into where I'm at right now, and right now I'd like to make a recommendation.

Sexuality and gender identity have been hot topics lately, especially in the Christian circles in which I participate - at school, at church, at work. Though most Christ followers are well-intentioned (I hope), I've seen a fair amount of violence and insensitivity in ways many of us choose to talk about homosexuality (or same-gender-attractedness (SGA) - a term that I'm really warming up to), and more disturbingly, in the ways we behave (or don't behave) toward same-gender-attracted folks.

If this is on your heart and mind, as it is on mine, or even if it's not(!), I'd like to point you toward a wonderful Canadian ministry I've just discovered called New Direction. Danice told me about them after one of their directors met with her church staff. Their mission: "Creating a safe place for same-gender-attracted people to journey towards wholeness in Christ." Their vision: "That every gay and lesbian person in Canada encounter Christ through friendship with a Christ-follower; and every Christian struggling with same-gender attraction access redemptive ministry in their own region."

Even the language they use in those two sentences is SO encouraging! I find their approach really refreshing. As one person put it on their blog: "discipleship, welcoming and transforming - not rejecting and condemning, or welcoming and affirming...[this is] the harder, more paradoxical road, but one that brings more possibilities for true, deep, and lasting impact through the dynamic tensions of listening, learning, and loving ... without compromising truth."

The key is that New Direction recognizes that transformation is God's business, and love is our business. They recognize that the goal is to introduce people to Christ, not to convert people to heterosexuality. Please, please check them out - at least check out their new blog. I have been challenged and blessed by it.

Mmmmmmm

2008-07-24T19:40:00.000-07:00

Right now, I am sitting at my table, alone. Danice is on a mission trip with her youth in France, and then in Germany, for two weeks. I miss her terribly. Lindsey is filming a month-long traditional Native canoe trek. Lynn is probably still at work, or practicing with her band. I am the lone roommate tonight.

I am trying to console myself with food. Don't worry, it's not comfort food. I'm not sitting here eating a litre of Haagen Dazs (though that does sound delicious now that I type it). I'm eating good food, food that is very good for me.

In fact, that's what I wanted to write about. My life has revolved around food as of late. I may have mentioned that I work at Jacob's Well, and I may have mentioned that we have a couple of urban gardens, nestled between a tofu factory and a sausage factory. I don't know if I mentioned that because we're not doing so well financially (ie. not receiving full paychecks), Jacob's Well has decided to give the staff a share of the gardens as part of our payment. So every week I take home a bag full of fresh green things from our Downtown Eastside gardens.

This has become a delight and a challenge. Often I find myself asking, "What is this green leaf? What is the stalk it is attached to? How should I eat it?" As we speak, there is a soup simmering on my stove. I started with my mom's "Peasant Bean Soup" recipe, and then I added a lot of things from the garden that I didn't know how else to eat. I threw in the Swiss chard. I chopped up the scapes and sauteed them and threw them in. If you don't know what a scape is, join the club. I just found out. They're these curly stems that grow out the top of garlic bulbs, and they taste like garlic, only milder. Gardeners cut them off so that the garlic will grow bigger. If you want pictures of garlic scapes and a recipe, check out my friend Emily's blog. She's good at eating well, and always makes sure to take excellent pictures of her food before consuming it.

As I sit here and eat raspberries (from the garden of course) mixed with yogurt, I will tell you more about why I've been thinking about food. A couple of weeks ago, I went on a trip, a trip called "The Gleaning Trip". Gleaning. Think Old Testament - the Israelite vineyard workers were commanded to leave some grapes on the vine for poor people to glean, and farmers were to leave the grain they dropped the first time around. I've heard interesting ideas about how we can allow for a similar gleaning practice today - like saving your coin change to give away, or setting out your bottles for bottle-collectors. But there's a group in the Okanagan that is taking gleaning very literally. They're called the Okanagan Gleaners. And every year, Jacob's Well sends a team to go serve with them for a week.

Here's what they do... they take the vegetables that orchard owners can't sell (they're small, they're weirdly shaped, they're spotted, they're rotten in one spot, etc.), and they chop them up, and they dry them in a huge dehydrator, and then they mix them all together in bags and send them overseas with YWAM and WorldVision as soup mix for orphanages and soup kitchens. They produce 5 million servings of soup a year. Isn't that incredible? Perfectly edible vegetables that would have otherwise ended up on the garbage heap are instead "gleaned" for the hungriest people on earth. I love it.

So we spent three hours every morning cutting the seeds, stems, and bad spots out of peppers, standing across from each other, talking, enjoying the fresh air... you know, your everyday feeding the hungry stuff. Every evening after supper, someone would share a reflection about the day. One day, Sheryl said she loved the way food brought us together - both around the peppers, and around the dinner table. She realized that the peppers we were holding in our hands would actually become part of other people. Seriously. I've never thought about that before - people across the world will eat the peppers in the soup mix, and their bodies will break down the food and incorporate the amino acids into their cells. Isn't that crazy? We really are what we eat.

Which means that when I help grow food in the Downtown Eastside and then eat it, I'm making the Downtown Eastside a part of my very body. That's so weird to think about. It makes me feel closer to the neighborhood. It makes me happy that we're growing good food for our friends there. It makes me excited to eat this soup.

My only problem now is dishes. They're piled up. I don't want to do them. Anyone want to come over and do my dishes? I'll give you some Garden Soup!

Summer in the Couv!

2008-07-06T14:14:00.001-07:00

Hello, friends!

It's been a week and a half... let me catch you up, using pictures and words.

Last Sunday, Danice and I got to go boating with the Bain family. It was my first time boating on the ocean (that is probably a lie, now that I think about it... I was probably on a boat in Costa Rica or Florida once.) It was my first time boating on the ocean in the Vancouver area. I would like to do much more of this! We had a great day. It was so hot that I didn't protest when the spray hit my face. We zoomed up the Burrard Inlet and Indian Arm, and anchored by some little islands, where we swam and ate supper. Swimming in the ocean is different than lakes, you know. For one thing, in the ocean, you have to watch you don't cut your feet on super-sharp barnacles. Also, you feel really sticky when you get out. And Danice said there would be jellyfish, but I didn't see any. Still, it was a most excellent day.

The boat!

Cold, having swam. Swum?
Danice, Cara, and Cara's Dad Russ in the dinghy.

Cara and her mom and the beautiful scenery!
Friday was my birthday! I'm now a quarter of a century old. Jodi gave me a quarter to mark the occasion. Actually, the occasion was quite marked - we had a ginormous party at our new place! It was a combined birthday/housewarming/independence day party, and there were probably 50 people that came through our house that night. The best part was that we had our very own party planner - the magnificent Lindsey Fox - so we didn't have to do a thing! All 8 of Danice's nieces and nephews came, and everyone participated as Jodi and Michelle prayed a blessing over different rooms of our house. It was great to have our house filled up with people. Soon I believe we'll be the number one hang-out spot on the East side. Thanks to all who came and brought food and warmed the house and blessed ME!

Jackson, our sometimes cat, warms the porch before the guests arrive.
Dance party in the living room!
Hanging out on the porch.
Hanging out on a more different porch.
Waking up the next morning having slept on the porch! (This house is all about the porches!)

The next day, Lindsey Fox joined my roommates and I for what I believe will become a routine Saturday morning outing to the Farmer's Market, 8 blocks south of our house.

Lindsey Fox likes chocolate.
Lindsey Willie likes hummus.
Lynn likes bread.We all love crepes!

Trout Lake, where the Market is held.

And in an hour, I'm leaving for the Okanagan - my first trip there. It's a working vacation, with my co-workers and volunteers from Jacob's Well. We're going to do some gleaning (I'll explain next time), and have a lot of fun. I hear the weather is a lot like Saskatchewan in the summer - dry and hot. I'll let you know if this is true.

I'm really excited about this new house and the next year I'll spend in it, and the roommates I'll spend it with (in case you haven't noticed!) I can't wait for my family to come see it in August! The rest of you are welcome, too, you know...

A little post-grieving is ok, too, I suppose.

2008-06-27T21:36:00.000-07:00

I was just editing a few leftover photos from Jericho Beach, where we used to live, and I got a bit nostalgic. So I'm posting them as part of an out-of-character post-grieving process. Enjoy!

It's a new home!

2008-06-22T20:28:00.000-07:00

Well, the move went about as smoothly as possible. We had lots of help, especially from Danice's family, who were awesome. Her brothers pulled our couch up over the balcony with a rope! Her mom and dad completely unpacked our kitchen the same day we moved... and that was a real blessing, because I was not in the mood to do that! I inherited a bed from Alberto for free, and he also fixed my bike. What a guy. Jodi, Lindsey, James and Veej also chipped in... everyone was very helpful. I'm grateful, because I felt like I spent most of the time kind of numb, walking from room to room, staring at boxes.

Some things I like about our new place:

-Our bathroom has a red door.

-We have a gas stove! It gets hot and cools down really quickly!

-I get to ride the Skytrain. It makes me feel like a working woman.

-When the sun shines through the leaves outside our bedroom window, it makes a beautiful moving pattern on the floor.

-We have a lot of pots. And a lot of mugs. And a lot of forks.

-There is a cat who used to live here. His name is Jackson. He now lives two doors down, but he still wanders in, hoping to be fed, whenever we leave the door open.

-Everyone on Commercial Drive is a soccer maniac. All restaurants, pubs and coffee shops are tuned into the European Finals.

-Gelato.

-There is a Farmer's Market five blocks away, every Saturday morning.

-The passion flowers I bought at the Farmer's Market yesterday. Owning plants (especially the coolest flowers ever, which I deduced after taking my plant taxonomy class) makes me feel like a real adult.

-Meeting neighbors! I've met four already. At my other place, I didn't meet any. Admittedly, I'm trying harder now.

-One of my neighbors, Len, enjoys working on motorcycles, on his front lawn. You can hear him revving the engines a lot. When he's not playing the flute...

-Being able to leave doors open without worrying about animals (or insects!) coming in. Except Jackson.

-The balconies! Especially the front one. Oh man. It is the bomb. We've already put a string of lights on it. It's the best hang-out spot. I'm going to sleep on it one night this week, I think.

-I shaved 25 minutes off my commute to work. I can even bike to work now that my bike is fixed!

-Roommates who aren't insane! Well, maybe a little bit.

-Having a kitchen table.

The day after we moved in, it was Car Free day on Commercial Drive. It was like the whole neighborhood got together to celebrate our arrival! It reminded me of the Fringe Festival, but 10 times bigger and weirder. Lots of street vendors, crazy acts, live music, people in costumes, and drumming circles. It was a blast. I especially loved watching one band. They're called the Carnival Band, and they rock. They are a ragtag collection of brass and percussion players with varied backgrounds and abilities (no auditions!), and they have more fun than any band I've seen. They dress up in crazy clothes and march around and play each other's drums and walk right up to members of the audience and they have nothing in common with each other except that they play for the joy of it. I found a video of them playing on the Skytrain... in case you want to see them (or the Skytrain!).

I also checked out the free stage at the Vancouver jazz festival on Saturday... oh man. I love the Saskatoon jazz festival, I think it's awesome, but the free stage in Vancouver is something else. I would have paid to see most of those bands. Especially the 11-piece Cuban salsa band in the evening... the whole crowd was dancing! Including me. At least I was trying. I've decided that I'd like to marry a Cuban.

To sum it all up... I'm loving summer in Vancouver, summer in my NEW HOUSE!

P.S. The sermon I preached last Sunday on the conversion of Saul (and Ananias!) went well, I think, despite the craziness of the weekend. If you have 25 minutes and you want to listen, you can find a recording here.

On Pre-grieving and Inscapes

2008-06-09T14:24:00.000-07:00

I should be writing my sermon for Sunday, but I figured I'd start with a blog entry this morning, to get the writing juices flowing, and to empty my head of some other thoughts that are crowding out the sermon thoughts!

We're moving to Commercial Drive in three days, and I find myself growing nostalgic already about the place we're leaving behind. I've always been annoyed by this quirk of mine... I tend to get reflective, sad, and even homesick BEFORE leaving a place or person. Soon after I leave, these feelings pass, and I adjust to the change quite quickly. When I shared this with Jodi last week, she called it "pre-grieving", and she said that some people are "pre-grievers" and some are "post-grievers". This has been a real revelation for me. Now I'm trying to embrace the pre-grieving process, instead of being angry at myself for "ruining" the last few days I have here by being overly melancholy.

So, a little pre-grieving, blog-style. People who know me well know that what I will miss most about this place is my Rock. Only a couple of days after arriving in Vancouver in Sept. 2005, I discovered the Rock and started visiting it every morning (here's the first blog entry I wrote about it). I'm a morning person, and I've always liked starting the day with God, and I've always liked doing it outdoors, if possible. There are a lot of places that have become meeting places. At our old house in Saskatoon, it was up in the treehouse in the backyard. When I lived at our family's current house in Saskatoon, it was the hill in the park. At camp, it was the secret patch of moss in the woods. But the Rock, my Vancouver spot, became the pinnacle of the meeting places. It's a semi-private place on the beach where God can spread out a whole variety of creatures for me to enjoy with Him. I can sing out loud and usually no one will hear but Him. I have a view of the ocean, the mountains, the city, and the sunrise, and it's only three minutes from my house.

Just recently God gave me a gift that helped in my pre-grieving of the Rock. It's linked to the blog entry I wrote recently about seeing new sides of trees and plants. When I got back from Saskatoon a couple weeks ago, I went down to my Rock as usual, but saw something new. There were bunches of yellow flowers hanging down, like a halo around my Rock. The sun was shining on them, and they were brilliant. I looked around, but there weren't any yellow flowers anywhere else on the beach. I climbed up and sat in my usual spot, and they seemed to surround me, enclosing my spot with beauty. I realized that I'd always noticed the dried-up pods on that hanging bush, but I'd never imagined what the flowers that produced them would look like. I spent much of that morning just looking at them and enjoying them, and watching the lazy bees they attracted.

One of my favorite poets, Gerard Manley Hopkins, talked about the idea of "inscape". He used the word to refer to the deep personality and character of things, often inanimate created things. He would try to use his poetry to "selve" things, to reveal what he saw to be unique in the way a certain tree or a certain rock was created. For me, it felt like the halo of flowers revealed the "inscape" of my Rock. It was as if the created things around that spot always knew it was a sacred place to meet with God, and they were letting me in on their secret, a secret I always knew but could never see physically. I praised God for revealing this hidden reality, and thanked Him for the time He gave me to delight in the fact that we'd really been together, through these three years, in a distinct way, even though I hadn't always realized it.

This morning, at the Rock, I read Psalm 84 - "How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty... better is one day in Your courts than thousands elsewhere." I know the Psalmist was talking about the Temple. I also know (from the theology class I'm currently taking) that the Holy Spirit's presence in me makes God's dwelling place much more universal and less "localized" than it was for the Old Testament people, who lived before Christ sent His Spirit. (I am glad for this, because it means that I don't leave God when I move to Commercial!) But I still understand the Psalmist's longing to meet God in a certain place, a place that becomes holy and sacred ground, a place where the skin between this world and the unseen reality all around it becomes a lot more thin and penetrable. I'm already praying God will show me one of these places, a new place to meet near Commercial. And I'll probably keep coming back to the Rock every once in a while, by bus, or by imagination...

Commercial Drive, here we come!

2008-06-04T09:32:00.000-07:00

Great news! After two and a half months of searching, Danice and I (and our friends Lindsey and Lynn) have finally found a house to move into! The house is on Commercial Drive, which is much further east than we are now. This means we'll be closer to downtown, where we work, and further from Regent. But it's on Commercial and 7th, which is two blocks away from Broadway, where the skytrain and express buses stop, so we're within reach of a lot of places.

The suite is a second floor and a loft in a large house. There are only three bedrooms, so two of us will be sharing a bedroom. There are three balconies (!) which I'm stoked about. The living room has a fireplace, and there's an actual kitchen! (We have a very, very small kitchen in our basement suite!)

Two of the best things about this house are the landlords and the neighbourhood. We've had such excellent landlords at our current house, and as we searched for a new house, we encountered a lot of landlords who seemed much less friendly. But the young couple who are renting out our new place are very friendly. They live on the main floor of the house, and they're excited about gardening with us in the backyard, and getting to know us better. Really, who wouldn't want to get to know us? :)

And the neighbourhood... what can I say about Commercial Drive? I guess for my Saskatoon friends, the closest description would be Broadway to the power of a thousand. Although "the Drive" started out as Vancouver's Little Italy, it's now a very racially diverse community - most of Vancouver's best ethnic restaurants are there. Within a couple of blocks, you can get Belgian fries, Italian gelato, Ethiopian, and Jamaican food. There are tons of independently-owned coffee shops. (Danice is very excited about this). There are dogs everywhere. (Danice is also very excited about this.) Ever since I did a project on a church on Commercial Drive in my first year here, I've always felt like I "fit in" there. I don't know what that means, because the stereotypical Drive resident would be a bike-riding, dog-owning, granola-eating, dreadlocked (or at least matted, greasy haired), baggy-clothes-made of-hemp-wearing, pot-smoking, Birkenstock-sandaled, green-party-supporting, chickens-in-the-backyard, belly-dancing, gender-not-always-crystal-clear person. But really, no one fits that stereotype. Everyone is eclectic. Case in point... as I sat in the Belgian fry place once, I saw a very tall Scandinavian man with a shaved head wearing a baby blue sweater with the name "Dusty" stitched in near his shoulder, walking hand in hand with a MUCH older Asian woman.

Really, even though people argue that it's getting more "trendy" and yuppies are starting to move there to be cooler, it still feels like a place where people are proudly "themselves." Perhaps obnoxiously themselves. They wear less make-up than people in Kitsilano. They don't care as much when their kids cry in public. They freely talk to people who are weird in different ways than they are weird. I think that's what I'm drawn to - it's a place where I want to be myself, too, even if I don't smoke pot. I will be a proud non-pot-smoker. And I'm looking forward to a fresh chance to actually get to know people in my neighborhood, to support a few local shopowners to the point that they know my name, and to be generally more 'present' in my community, which is something I think I haven't done well here in Kitsilano.

And I'm stoked about learning to be more hospitable, taking more ownership of a place, cooking in a normal-sized kitchen and enjoying it, and inviting people over to eat and sit on the balcony!

You can pray for me in the next couple of weeks though... we have to pack and move, and I also need to write a sermon, because I'm preaching on the 15th at Kits Church for the first time, a day after we move! Lots to do, and very little time. But it's an exciting time. God is providing for me, answering prayers right and left.

The trees were holding out on me.

2008-05-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

Thank you to those who contributed to my survey in the last post... interesting data, indeed! Feel free to add a comment, if you haven't yet, and I will let you know when I draw conclusions.

It's amazing how much Vancouver can change in a week and a half! As I walk the route from my bus stop to my house, I am reminded that I do not know the trees at all. I do not know the flowers at all. I thought I did, because I've walked that same route for three years now, with one important exception: I've missed a crucial 4-month period every year. Yes, this is my first Vancouver summer. This is my first Vancouver month of May.

Familiar trees that I know by heart in September and March are now unrecognizable, covered in unexpected blossoms or fresh leaves. There are strange and beautiful orange flowers growing by the front steps that I have never seen before. I am enjoying being taken by surprise. Trees and bushes I scarcely noticed before are springing to my attention, like when one instrument suddenly stands out in the orchestra.

Let me give you an example. There's a scraggly tree on Alma &3rd, he's a chaotic mess of thin branches growing in all directions from a thick stump. He's a species I've never seen before, and I've never been able to identify him. He grows in the yard of a man who collects other people's junk. He's not an immediately lovable tree, but I've grown to love him for his scraggliness, just like I've grown a secret affection for this little long-haired junk-collecting man I've seen but never actually talked to. The other day, as I approached the tree on my walk home, instead of scraggly branches, I saw what looked like soft pink dreadlocks. Every branch was covered with the tiniest pink flowers, bringing out a softer side of him I'd never seen. He reminded me of something out of a Dr. Seuss book! Or perhaps Sideshow Bob's hair, if it were pink (for the Simpsons fans out there). I felt a sense of pride in this tree I'd grown to love over three autumns and winters and springs. He had been holding out on me! Actually, I had been missing out on him. I imagined everyone looking at him and enjoying him a little more than usual. I also wanted people to know that I loved him before I knew he was beautiful.

This whole experience of Vancouver flora in May reminds me of similar experiences with people. I don't know if anyone else is reminded of people when they look at plants... it may be a weird side effect of being both a biologist and a pastor-in-training.... Anyway, I am being reminded of times when people I love reveal some gift or talent I never knew they had. Like when I returned home from Belgium, and my brother could suddenly play saxophone. Or when I heard Chris sing for the first time. Or the first time I saw Danice interact with her youth. It's such a great feeling, because you already love the person, but it gives you one more reason to love them, one more dimension to that love. It also reminds me that even when I think I know someone, I don't know all of them. This is something God's been teaching me for a few years - people are rarely as good or as bad as I think they are. There are beautiful and ugly sides to people I rarely see. Which is great motivation to pay closer attention in all seasons, and love them in all seasons.

Home life

2008-05-23T18:58:00.000-07:00

I'm at my family home in Saskatoon. I just swept the kitchen and the three bathrooms and both entrances. My mom is exploiting my love for sweeping the floor. I really do love sweeping the floor. She never forgets that. I enjoyed getting in her way in the kitchen tonight while she made meatballs. They're very easy. I could make them back in Vancouver.

My dad just walked in. He's wearing his greasy mechanic one-piece outfit and holding some rusty car part from Rachel's car. Hopefully the part that's making it hard to start the car. Yep, he just confirmed it, it's the starter. He's a pastor, but he looks very at home as an engineer.

It's great being home and settling into a different rhythm, even though it's only for a while. I have enjoyed the simple things - picking dandelions out of the grass, having a drink at the coffee shop where Rachel works, watching the crabapple blossoms bloom on the tree, and laying on the backyard lawn in the sun. My family is awesome.

It was fun being at the Webbers, too, for our yearly gathering of four families. Sam, Cindie and Danice were the newbies this year, and they all live in Vancouver, so it was a strange meeting of two worlds for me. Lots of laughs, theological discussions, visits to cattle ranches, rides in the back of pick-up trucks, gopher shooting (I didn't participate), and eating. Some pictures of Danice experiencing the prairies:

Oh yeah, I'm also doing a survey right now. It's a dialectical geographical survey, and you can participate. It's very important. Here's the question - please leave your answer as a comment, and state where you live: What do you call the game where you knock on people's doors or ring their doorbells, and then you run away before they open it?

Please answer. Vancouver, I'll see you in a couple days.

Thomas Merton rocks

2008-05-12T19:43:00.000-07:00

The rain has stopped. The afternoon sun slants through the pine trees: and how those useless needles smell in the clean air! A dandelion, long out of season, has pushed itself into bloom between the smashed leaves of last summer’s day lilies. The valley resounds with totally uninformative talk of creeks and wild water. Then the quails begin their sweet whistling in the wet bushes.

Their noise is absolutely useless, and so is the delight I take in it. There is nothing I would rather hear, not because it is a better noise than other noises, but because it is the voice of the present moment, the present festival.

(Thomas Merton - "When the Trees Say Nothing")

Digestion

2008-05-09T22:09:00.001-07:00

I was thinking about how it takes me so long to digest things - information and art, especially.

For example, when I read a book, I usually underline or mark passages in it that I like. When I get to the end of the book, I don't feel like I've really "got" it unless I go back through it again. Otherwise, nothing sticks - it's all gone. So I usually flip through it and type out the parts that I like, and remind myself of the structure of it, and the point of it. It takes twice as long for me to read books as it takes a lot of other people.

And in order to actually feel like I have a handle on a song or a band, I have to sit and listen intently to the music while looking at the lyrics and concentrating on the song as a whole - I can't just have it in the background. Lately this has taken up a lot of my time, because I've been "getting into" a few different artists (U2, obviously, as well as Ani DiFranco and Death Cab for Cutie). All of them have been around for a while, so it takes time to sit and really get my head around their body of work - in each case, I have a lot of catching up to do. I need to start getting interested in brand-new artists so that this catch-up takes less time!

I guess this is ok. I'd rather know what I know and know it well. I'd rather really appreciate a few things, instead of spreading a broad and shallow net. Next things to dive into: Brothers Karamazov and Radiohead.

So what's been going on my life lately... I'm looking and looking for a 3-bedroom house to rent with Danice and Lindsey, preferably further east in this lovely city, but so far, the search is fruitless. I have started working full-time at Jacob's Well. I got two TA jobs for the fall 2008 semester (Iain and Darrell), so I will not have time to take many classes come September! I just played guitar at a pastor's conference at Regent, where I got to listen to and meet Marva Dawn, who is an amazing writer and a hero of mine. I finished watching Season 2 of "Lost" with Danice, on to Season 3. I'm playing piano at Tora and Jordan's wedding tomorrow. The cherry blossoms are almost all gone, but there are a lot of other things blooming here that I've never seen before (because I've always been in Saskatoon by May!). I'm going to Homowebmape in a week, and I'm bringing Danice with me. After that, I'm spending a week in Saskatoon, so Saskatoon friends... let's do coffee, between the 19th and the 25th of this month.

Women, let's talk.

2008-05-03T16:59:00.001-07:00

Disclaimer: This blog is about... menstruation. Many men (and probably some women) will likely not want to read on. I, myself, am not very comfortable talking about this, as Danice would attest, and I am even less comfortable writing about it for the masses of people who read my blog. But I'm writing as an effort to get rid of some of that awkwardness, as I will explain below.

I made a decision about menstrual products last year, and it was probably one of my best choices all year (you know, next to deciding to become a pastor!). Since it was my sister who inspired me to do this, I'd love to inspire more women to follow suit. Also,I want to brag about how hard core I am, because I'm proud of it, and I don't exactly drop it into casual conversation.

This is what I did: I stopped buying tampons and pads, and instead, I bought two reusable products: the DivaCup , and Lunapads (designed and produced locally in Vancouver). Both can be ordered online.

Together, these cost me about $70, and will likely last me several years. My wallet is happy!

I am no longer contributing any menstrual products to landfills (an average woman throws away 12 000 pads and tampons in her lifetime, not to mention the packaging). The planet is happy!

I don't know much about the health risks of tampons and the bleaching and all that, but I'm kind of glad to not have to worry about that now, too. Bonus advantage: you can't feel the DivaCup, and Lunapads are much, much more soft and comfortable than plastic pads. My body is happy!

So... good for the environment, good for my body, good for my budget. All I had to do was to get comfortable with seeing my own blood. Which was easy, once I reminded myself that the people making me think it was dirty and embarrassing (maybe even shameful), in need of sanitizing, bleaching and immediate disposal were... drumroll please... the producers of the tampons and pads! How convenient for them. They're so embarrassed for me that they use a strange blue liquid to substitute for blood in their little scientific demonstrations on their commercials, and tell me I need "protection" from something that comes from my own body! An interesting article I read online (read it!) talked about how disposable pads (Kotex brand) were invented in 1921, after WWI, from an absorbent wadding used to bandage wounds in the war. The part about advertising is fascinating:

"...the menstrual product industry has employed a three-fold marketing strategy that remains remarkably unchanged almost 100 years later, though its methods may vary: medicalize menstruation as a problematic bodily function; emphasize the importance of hygiene (menstruation as "dirty"); and stress the potential for embarrassment ostensibly inherent in menstruation itself. In these ways, menstruation is itself constructed by the marketing of the product. In conjunction, these strategies effectively instruct women to be silent on the subject."

So I'm trying to break the silence, and change my own perceptions about my body and the way God made it to function. But I won't say much more - you can check out the product websites. (I will warn you that the DivaCup takes some practice and you have to be ready to give it several tries. Before starting with it, I used "ob" brand tampons, without applicators, and I think that was a good intermediate step.)

Feel free to ask me more questions about this, if you want... it might help me become less awkward talking about it.

One love, one...liner.

2008-04-27T14:21:00.000-07:00

On the plate today are some of Bono's great one-liners from that same book, "Bono in Conversation":

(okay, some of them are two-or-three-liners!)...

"The sound of getting out of a ghetto is very different to the sound of getting into one."

"To be relevant is a lot harder than to be successful."

"Coolness might help in your negotiation with people through the world, but it is impossible to meet God with sunglasses on."

"Decadence is when you have it all in front of you and don’t notice. I noticed everything. And I appreciated it."

"You know, celebrity is ridiculous. It’s silly, but it is a kind of currency, and you have to spend it wisely."

"One of the great ironies of these concerts is that our songs are very intimate: incredible intimacies shared with people whom you’ve never met. And I wouldn’t trust that. Who would trust that?"

"It’s inevitable. Love has to become an action or something concrete. It would have to happen. There must be an incarnation. Love must be flesh."

"It’s the loss of money that leads to the love of it."

"This is how we worship God, even though we don’t write religious songs, because we didn’t feel God needs the advertising."

"The thing that’ll make you less and less able to realize your potential is a room that’s empty of argument. And I would be terrified to be on my own as a solo singer, not to have a band to argue with."

"No one does anything interesting for just the right reason. It’s the flaw that makes the frame... You wouldn’t write a song if you didn’t have a hole in your heart."

"Yeah, a great rock show can be a transcendent event... it’s an extraordinary thing to get 70000 people or 7000 people to agree on anything."

"God is love, and as much as I respond in allowing myself to be transformed by that love and acting in that love, that’s my religion. Where things get complicated for me, is when I try to live this love. Now, that’s not so easy."

"It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the Universe...And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that “As you reap, so will you sow” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff."

"The Greeks may have come up with democracy, but they had not intention of everyone having it."

"The quality I admire in people the most is lack of self-pity."

"Laughter is the evidence of freedom. A sense of humor is not always defensive. It can be a great attack dog."

"You just get on with your life, and you slowly find a place to put Africa, this beautiful, shining continent with all its ups and downs. Occasionally, you’d take it out, you’d look at it again, and then you’d put it back in that safer place called distance and time."

"“Be silent, and know that I am God.” That’s a favorite line from the Scriptures. “Shut Up and Let Me Love You” would be the pop song."

When wrestling with God, wear a cup.

2008-04-15T17:16:00.001-07:00

This is what I'm paying the big bucks at Bible School for...

This morning in my last Genesis class, we studied the story of Jacob wrestling with God. It's in Genesis 32 (we didn't quite make it all the way through Genesis!).

If you know the story, a man meets Jacob in the dark and starts wrestling with him. It's not until daybreak that Jacob realizes he's wrestling with God. The match is lasting forever, and no one is winning. Here's how verse 25 goes in my Bible:

"When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man."

And verses 31-32:

"The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon."

This gets kind of technical, but bear with me, I promise it will get good... My professor, Dr. Provan, started talking about the Hebrew words that are translated "socket" ("kap") and "hip" ("yarek"). He explained that elsewhere in Genesis and in the Old Testament, these are actually words associated with flesh and muscle, not bone (eg. "yarek" is translated "thigh" in Gen. 24:9). It's hard to tell exactly what parts of the body the author is referring to. The custom it describes (not eating parts of the meat) didn't even make it into the Jewish law - this is the only mention of it. The word translated "tendon" is "gid-hannasheh", and this is the only place it's used, so it's impossible to know exactly what it means, but it seems to be some sort of "fleshly appendage". At this point, the less mature students in the class (including me) were already giggling.

So Dr. Provan has a theory, unprovable, but very appealing, in my opinion. Instead of talking about hips, sockets and tendons, he thinks that this passage is euphemistically talking about Jacob's genitalia. Basically, he thinks God kicked Jacob in the groin. That's why he limped. God canned him. God sort of cheated. Which makes sense, because if you know Jacob, you know Jacob is a cheater, and it would be poetic justice for Jacob to be kicked in the crotch by God.

Although in this painting by Eugene Delacroix, it looks like Jacob is trying to turn the tables and knee God in the crotch...

Anyway, as you can tell, this has given me a whole new appreciation for the story, and for Jacob. I think he might be a new hero of mine. :)

Bono in conversation

2008-04-13T22:28:00.001-07:00

I've been reading this book of conversations with Bono. It's by Michka Assayas, and it's entitled "Bono in Conversation." Very appropriate. You know I've been getting into U2, and the thing is, I kind of thought they might be an accident. I thought that maybe they stumbled into a lot of great things, and that maybe they didn't really know what made them great. But I was wrong. At least in Bono's case. This man is freaking brilliant. So much of what he says is full of wit, humor, wisdom and humility. Here's how he describes himself in the book:

"I’m a scribbling, cigar-smoking, wine-drinking, Bible-reading band man. A show-off who loves to paint pictures of what I can’t see. A husband, father, friend of the poor and sometimes the rich. An activist traveling salesman of ideas. Chess player, part-time rock star, opera singer, in the loudest folk group in the world."

He is, of course, very involved in Africa. This one thing he said really grabbed me. Check it out:

"Right now there is the biggest pandemic in the history of civilization, happening in the world now with AIDS. It’s bigger than the Black Death, which took a third of Europe in the Middle Ages. Sixty-five hundred Africans are dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease. And it is not a priority for the West: two 9/11s a day, eighteen jumbo jets of fathers, mothers, families falling out of the sky. No tears, no letters of condolence, no fifty-one-gun salutes. Why? Because we don’t put the same value on African life as we put on a European or an American life. God will not let us get away with this, history certainly won’t let us get away without excuses. We say we can’t get these antiretroviral drugs to the farthest reaches of Africa, but we can get them our cold fizzy drinks. The tiniest village, you can find a bottle of Coke. Look, if we really thought that an African life was equal in value to an English, a French, or an Irish life, we wouldn’t let two and a half million Africans die every year for the stupidest of reasons: money. We just wouldn’t. And a very prominent head of state said to me: “It’s true. If these people weren’t Africans, we just couldn’t let it happen.” We don’t really deep down believe in their equality."

Crazy. I think he's right. I might be posting more quotes from the book soon...

Unless a seed falls

2008-04-09T20:12:00.000-07:00

I spent today at Jacob's Well, like every Wednesday this year. I'm getting paid now! I'm on staff! After two and a half years of volunteering. I will be working there full-time this summer. Here's a taste of today, a taste of the Well... (check out our website if you want)

I took the bus for 40 minutes to arrive at Jacob's Well, on Main and Cordova.

I spent the morning tackling the problem of how to reconcile Quickbooks with our bank statements for 2008. I rejoiced when the numbers added up!

I cut up half a pineapple to share at Colleagues' lunch. Every Wednesday, we invite other people who minister in the downtown eastside to come eat lunch with us. Usually we have between 5-10 guests. It's great - a lot of us bring food to share, and we share stories and prayer requests and pray together and drink tea.

I wrote a cheque to Telus. I wrote a cheque to the Receiver General.

Someone came in to use our bathroom. They asked if we were trying to fix doors. Berto explained that those are our tables. (Our tables are made of old doors.)

I headed out to the Farm. We have two community gardens in the downtown eastside, and we call them collectively "Red Clover Farm." Today, I got to plant onions, parsnips and lettuce. I also transplanted two trees with Berto. We have too many for the farm, so we put them outside the garden, near the street, on city property. An elderly Chinese lady came by and encouraged us, although she couldn't speak English. She used her fingers to show us that she is 78 years old. She laughed when I tried to repeat after her in Mandarin, and gave me a thumbs-up sign. Maybe I should try to learn Mandarin.

At 5:00, I walked to the bus stop with very dirty hands. On the way, a lady tried to sell me a flower. My heart sank. It was our friend J., the flower lady, for whom we had tried to find temporary housing in January. I had spent a whole afternoon with her that month - she had been off drugs for a while, and we tried to set up an interview for her at a drug-free housing unit, so that she could stay clean. She had been very kind and articulate that day. But today, I could hardly recognize her, and she definitely didn't recognize me either. It was like she was a different person, disheveled, bent over, scowling and shuffling along with her flowers, getting angry at me because I didn't want one, yelling and complaining to everyone who passed. Another attempt to stay clean, foiled. This was the first time I'd seen this kind of "before and after" change in a friend of ours... my co-workers, Joyce, Jane, Dawn, Berto, Tom and Dave, see this all the time. I'm starting to realize how discouraging ministry on the downtown eastside can be. Watching friends make good choices, and then turn around back down the same destructive path again.

I rode the bus home, another 40 minutes. Tried not to think about the flower lady. Tried to think about those seeds I planted... thinking how crazy it is to put something that tiny into the dead ground, and to expect life to burst from it.

Thank the Great Spiritual Beings!

2008-04-03T21:20:00.000-07:00

My brother was asked to say a prayer at his high school grad banquet in Saskatoon, SK. He eagerly accepted.

Then they gave him the "school board approved" prayer... if it can even be called a prayer. Check this out:

"In the spirit of humility we give thanks for all that is.
We thank the great spiritual beings who have shared their wisdom.
We thank our ancestors who brought us to where we are now.
We are grateful for the opportunity to walk this planet,
to breathe the air,
to taste the food,
to experience sensations of a human body/mind,
to share in this wonder that is life.
We are grateful for the natural world that supports us,
for the community of humankind that enables us to do many wondrous things.
We are grateful that we are conscious,
that as intelligent beings we can reflect upon the many gifts we have been given."

Gag me. Danice says he should just hijack the whole thing and pray something of his own. It's grad, he's finished school ... what can they do to him?

What would you do?

I want U2 respond

2008-04-02T18:47:00.000-07:00

I never was a big fan of "U2". I think it came from hearing too many Christians trying to "up" their cool factor by listening to them, and then discussing all their songs with each other, and making me feel insecure for not knowing their music. I developed negative associations to them. Plus, they were just too big. I didn't want to start liking them just because everyone else seemed to.

It's only this year that I came to my senses, through the musical influence of Danice. I finally fell in love with U2, first with "40", then "Where the Streets Have No Name," then "Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own," then "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", and many more. My admiration for them feels more authentic because it's taken time. Also, through Jodi's influence, we managed to work U2 songs into our Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday services at Kits Church this year.

So now I'm working U2 into school. I'm in the process of writing a paper for my Preaching and Worship class with this title: "What the Church can Learn from U2 about Worship". I'm reading some great books, but I'd love to have the input of anyone reading this blog. I'd especially like to hear from people who have attended their concerts. I've heard a lot of people say that this experience has been one of the most spiritual/religious experiences of their lives. Anyone want to give me some feedback?

Apocalypto

2008-03-31T17:02:00.000-07:00

So I've got a new blog format to go along with my resolution to write more... it's very Easter-ly. All things being made new.

My thoughts today come from my Preaching class with Darrell Johnson. He talked about preaching the book of Revelation, and gave us several tips for interpreting and explaining the book. He actually wrote a book about it called "Discipleship on the Edge," which I haven't read, but I want to, after learning so much in today's class.

Some of it I had heard already... like the fact that we need to honor the book's genre, as a letter (which was written to a particular people and had meaning to their present-day situation) and an apocalypse (which means "unveiling" or "breaking through" - the disclosure of the unseen realities of both the future and the present, drawing out implications for today.) It is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, about Jesus Christ, by Jesus Christ, and any interpretation that doesn't lead to an encounter with Christ (eg. by getting bogged down in dates, or in fear-mongering) does not match up with the purpose of the book. There is a lot of symbolism in the book (let's hope we don't go to meet Christ and discover an actual lamb with 7 eyes and 7 horns!), and this also applies to the numbers used.

The most eye-opening realization about the book that I heard today is this: John saw these visions in a certain order, but this doesn't mean they're in chronological order. It doesn't seem like he was concerned with chronology at all (a characteristic which I've also seen as I've studied Genesis in Iain Provan's class). The book feels jumpy and disjointed, moving from mass destruction to throne-room worship, to what seems like an ending, but keeps going... Darrell likened it to an MTV music video, with rapid cuts and little continuity. One minute, Jesus is holding 7 stars in his right hand (1:16), and the next, he's placing his right hand on John (1:17). It makes a lot of sense to me to approach the book with a view of unpacking the images, and letting them take their places, without trying to impose a chronology on them.

Anyway, I'm excited to do more reading on this. Darrell spent a whole year preaching Revelation (1999 - the Y2K year). Maybe I will one day...

In closing, here is a picture of cows that I apocalypt-ified.

The Ones We Love

2008-03-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed I rarely write blogs. I think I'm going to begin again. Mostly because my creative side is fighting for time in my life, and it is a losing battle. And this morning, for once, I am regretting this. I don't know what has to be cut out from my life to give room for my imagination, but maybe this blog can keep me accountable.

This may mean shorter, more frequent blogs, sometimes profound, sometimes simple, sometimes just a single idea or impression.

Here's my thought of the morning: If you take a picture of someone you love more than anything in the world, will it make a difference in the photo? Will someone feel the weight and strength of your love when they look at it?

Decide for yourself... check out The Ones We Love. It has turned me into an imaginative, emotional mess this morning, and I have no idea how I'll get any work done today.

A Long-Overdue Update

2008-02-11T22:22:00.000-08:00

So, I haven't posted a blog in exactly two months. That's pretty bad. Sorry to any of you who still check this! I guess I've been doing more on Facebook and Flickr, and neglecting this site. Oh well.

Let me catch you up... first of all, my finger is doing great. It's hardly visible anymore. I'm rubbing Vitamin E oil on it every night, which is supposed to prevent scarring. It's still kind of numb, but someone told me it could take over a year for all the feeling to come back. Until then, it's a handy callous for guitar playing.

The wedding over Christmas was a lot of fun - I'll just post a couple of pictures here. Christine and Dan had it well planned, so my first time being maid of honor was a breeze. Rachel and Wing Go took the pictures, and they did an excellent job. They're actually planning on making a business out of wedding photography. If you're planning a wedding in the Saskatoon area, you should definitely hire them.

Christmas was one of the best I can remember in a long time. Sarah and Nick came, as did Grandma Precious, and Sarah and Grandma stayed for over a week. We played a lot of board games, watched a lot of "Lost" Season One, built some snowmen, and hung out with the Twagilamanas. I also preached a sermon at Emmanuel - my first one - and got some great feedback.
Now I'm back in the basement suite, back in school to complete my third year of four. I'm taking Greek, Genesis, Preaching, and a class called "Soul of Ministry" which is kind of about emotional and spiritual health for pastors-to-be, done through group work and self-analysis. Besides school, I'm working at Jacob's Well, where I have more responsibility than I bargained for... I was supposed to take over for Jane in April, when she was supposed to have her baby, but she's on bedrest now because of an early going-into-labor scare, so I'm doing a lot of bookkeeping and tax receipt-making and plenty of other good things that I'm almost trained to do.

Speaking of Jacob's Well, one thing I'm really excited about right now is the chance to play piano on Tom Wuest's new worship CD. He's also part of the Jacob's Well family, and he's a very talented worship songwriter. I even get to sing on the album, which is definitely a new experience for me.

This week is Reading week, and I decided to spend the day with some Jacob's Well people on Galiano Island, an hour-long ferry ride away. We went out there to help Tom fix up his family's new house. It's beautiful there... I took pictures like crazy, and I'll try to post some soon. I spent most of the afternoon pulling up Scotch Broom, which is an invasive weed there, but which is really more of a bush. As I struggled with it, I was thinking about my Genesis class and the passage about the curse of weeds and hard ground... it was very satisfying to get them out, though! I hope I get to go back there soon.

The next big thing: my brother Daniel is coming for a visit on Wednesday! He's staying for a week, and we're going to visit Victoria so he can take a look at a school there that he might be interested in attending next year. I'm excited to see Arwen on the island, and to hang out with Daniel and do touristy things together.

By the way, our basement suite currently has a guest room, so if any of you are thinking of visiting Vancouver, now is the time! Before May!

Alright, I'm exhausted from my weed-pulling day, so I'll sign off. Goodnight.

The best laid plans...

2007-12-11T13:28:00.000-08:00

Do I have a story for you! I hesitate to tell it now, because it might not be over yet. But I have nothing better to do right now, as you will soon see from my story. It is the story of two plans - mine and God's.

Beth's plan

Saturday, Dec. 8
- go to Jacob's Well brunch
- spend the rest of the day studying for Theology exam

Sunday, Dec. 9 - the day of rest!
- lead worship
- hang out with Paul & Sarah Williams family in the afternoon (they are Regent profs)
- watch a movie with Danice in the evening

Monday, Dec. 10
- write Theology exam
- spend the rest of the day doing Hermeneutics paper

Tuesday, Dec. 11
- hand in Hermeneutics paper
- spend the rest of the day doing Ethics paper

Wednesday, Dec. 12
- hand in Ethics paper
- mark one hundred and twenty Old Testament final exams

Thursday, Dec. 13
- hand in Old Testament exams
- fly home

Friday-Sunday
- be a maid of honor in Christine's wedding

Ok, I hope that didn't bore you. As you can see, every hour of my week was planned. I was in complete control. It would be tight, but I would get everything done. I always do. Here's where my story gets exciting.

God's plan

Saturday
- same as Beth's plan

Sunday
- Beth will lead worship.
- Beth will go to the Williams' house. There, she will agree to help Hannah make gingerbread for a school project.
- While using a hand mixer (one of those long skinny ones with a blade at the end) for the first time, Beth will foolishly use her finger to try to get some butter out from behind the blade, and will accidentally turn it on at the same time, mangling the top section of her finger.
- Beth will not faint! She will be proud of herself.
- Beth will go to the emergency room with Jonathan (who lives in the Williams' basement) and Emilia (their 10-yr. old daughter, who has been to the hospital a lot). She will get 4 stitches and a huge bandage.
- Beth will go home to be comforted by Danice with some hot chocolate and Bailey's.

Monday
- Beth will write her exam as planned. (her left index finger is cut up - her right hand is still fine to write). It will go well. Beth will gain confidence, and will grow more sure that she can still complete the week as she had planned - this finger thing was just a little test from God to see if she would persevere.
- Beth will return home and begin typing her Hermeneutics paper, with the huge gauzy bandaged finger only slightly slowing her down.
- Beth will go to fill up her water bottle to take another extra-strength Advil for the finger pain. Clumsily reaching for the water with her bandaged finger, she will accidentally spill it all over her laptop keyboard.
- Beth will call her father in a panic, and he will spend the next four hours explaining how to take the computer apart and dry it off. Danice will help, and the landlords upstairs will donate various screwdrivers and other tools.
- After all the work, Beth's dad will conclude that the hard drive has been affected. It is the worst-case scenario they were dreading. Beth will not be able to access any of her files, including the half-finished Hermeneutics and Ethics papers due in the next couple of days. Her computer is fried. She will cry a little. But Beth's dad is pretty sure he can restore her files when she returns home on Thursday with her poor, wet computer.
- Beth will e-mail her two professors (using Danice's computer) and ask for extensions for the first time in her life. She will find her professors to be very understanding.
- Beth will finish the day by ordering pizza with Danice and watching "Spaceballs".

Tuesday
- Beth will sleep in for the first time in weeks.
- Beth will realize that she has no work to do. No work she CAN do. Nothing she can accomplish.
- Beth will go to school and help make Tuesday soup, ensuring that she does not cut off any more fingers.
- Beth will sit in the library and leisurely write a blog, surrounded by hundreds of panicked, busy students.
- Beth will marvel at my strange, twisted mercy.
- Beth will realize that I am in control of her week and her life.

Wednesday-Sunday
- Who knows?

So there you have it. It has been a crazy, difficult, sobering couple of days, but the result has been a lot of learning and a lot of grace. I have felt God with me through the whole thing. I have experienced the kindness of many people I hardly know (Ceri, who took care of me right after my finger was cut, Jonathan, who took me to the hospital, Paul and Sarah, who prayed for me before I left, my landlords, my roommates, my professors), and I have been extremely grateful for the love and care of those closest to me (especially Danice, who let me cry with her and brought me seriously spiked drinks, and my family, who comforted me over the phone).

Thanks to those of you who have been praying for me. I'll be home soon - with a couple papers to finish, but hopefully much more rested and thankful than I would have been had my plan worked. And ready to celebrate with Chris and Dan!

If anyone would like to see a picture of my finger without the bandage on (I like to call it Frankenfinger), I will e-mail it to you - I didn't want to gross everyone out on the blog!

That's all for now... I hope....

Gush.

2007-12-02T15:23:00.000-08:00

Lately I feel about as "gushy" as the rainy-snowy slush covering the streets outside. I did a lot of walking around in it today - it's the sort of slush that splats out from under your boots and leaves you with sopping pant legs, a higher liquid-to-powder ratio than the more solid Saskatoon type. It's actually the type that we get for a couple days in April in Saskatoon, when everything melts. So it's weird to have slush for Advent instead of Lent.

Anyway, the point was that I feel gushy. Sappy. Sentimental. I don't know why, but I feel like I'm feeling things more strongly. Any emotion I experience is forceful and cries out to be expressed. Like a second adolescence. Or an early menopause of mood swings.

Maybe it's because it's harvest time. My prof, Dr. Stackhouse, encouraged my class by reminding us that when we're in busy times like the end of term, it's kind of like when all the farmers go out and bring in the crop - you work overtime and live a very "unbalanced" life. He prayed not for balance, but for our health. Maybe the stress of this time is making me unbalanced - in a different way than he intended to communicate. I had a mini-breakdown with Danice, as I realized how little time and how much work I have left this term. I was also realizing that I DO let my health suffer at the end of term - I survive on very little sleep. Danice said that in my old age, I am not going to look back with joy on all my good marks at Regent, because I will already be dead, since I'm not taking care of myself now. Wise words. So I set some goals for sleep, and I'm going to try to fight my workaholism and perfectionism as much as I can. Please pray for me! Last night I went to hear Joyce speak at the Canadian Youth Workers' Conference, and she was talking about Sabbath, reminding us that God didn't let the Israelites forget about Sabbath during their harvest and planting times. So here I am, practicing Sabbath in harvest time, and trying to get a good sleep. But I still feel gushy.

The whole emotional thing may have started over Reading Week. I had a great time being at home, doing "wedding-ish" things with Christine, sitting in on one of Rachel's uni. classes, and watching a lot of "Planet Earth". And seeing my brother's play, "Les Miserables," twice - it was incredible. I can't believe how many good vocalists that high school has right now - when I went there, we had to scrounge for one or two good male singers to hold it together. But Daniel was really something else as Jean Valjean. I don't even think I'm being overly biased as his sister... the applause was so long after his solo "Bring Him Home" that the orchestra had to start playing to keep the show moving. The "emotional" stuff definitely hit me as I watched him - I teared up quite a few times, and I still do sometimes when I listen to the soundtrack. I think it was mostly pride in seeing Daniel up there, so mature and talented, tackling the role and the songs with confidence. He just seemed to exude the moral strength that Valjean has in that story, and it didn't really seem like he was acting - I mean, he really does have that kind of integrity and strength, and it was powerful to see it portrayed on stage in a way I rarely realize when he's just my little brother on the phone. I guess all of that, rolled up with a dramatic storyline and beautiful songs, is enough to make any big sister cry. Ok, I'll stop embarrassing him now. (Photo taken by Rachel or Wing Go)

I had the chance to see a very different kind of drama today, and get emotional all over again - the Eastside Story Guild put on a presentation at Grandview Calvary church this morning. This is a multicultural group of kids and youth whose mission is to "tell stories" - to interpret stories from the Bible in a way that incorporates their own stories. Their story this time was the exile to Babylon, interwoven in a very interesting way with the story of Native Americans in Canada and the residential schools. Many of the storytellers were Native. I started crying when these little kids dressed up as Babylonians attacked the Native Americans and pulled their children away from the Native elders, who really seemed heartbroken. With adult actors, the whole concept might have seemed forced, but the kids took the edge off just enough to really make it sink in deeply. The drama ended with a drumming/dancing circle as we all received communion, which was in the form of cranberry juice and bannock, in true Native American style. I think the whole thing hit home because we've been talking about the residential schools lately at Jacob's Well. A lot of people in the Downtown Eastside, including some of our friends at Jacob's Well, are receiving their settlement money this month - some will receive thousands of dollars all at once. We've been talking about how money doesn't bring healing, and how it can be morally hazardous for anyone to receive that large a sum of money at once, let alone people living among the temptations and complexities of the Downtown Eastside. I'm praying that this effort to compensate these people for their pain is not going to cause further pain.

One of my favorite "gushy" moments - yesterday I went down to my rock, as usual. Two minutes after I got there, I saw a few tiny flecks of white fall on the rock. It was the first snow, and I was just in time to witness it! Yep, I teared up then too. I don't know if it's self-centered to treat snow in Vancouver as a gift just for me, but that's always how I interpret it. I remember when I was in Belgium for Christmas, and it snowed there for the first time in several years, and I just stood outside and soaked in God's love for me. So I'm pretty sure he did it just for me yesterday too, just to make things feel more like home, and more Advent-y. The leaves were kind of funny-looking, sticking out of the snow...

So there you go. I'm a mess. And I'm trying to figure out how to move from sappy sentimentalism to a more meaningful place - I think emotions can lead me into a kind of understanding at a deeper level than just head knowledge, but I have to really live with them and mull them over and sometimes do something creative with them - write a poem, or at least a journal entry. Which I rarely give myself time to do!

I want to make it clear that I did NOT cry or otherwise show emotion when the Riders won the Grey Cup. I gave a high five.

Considering it is harvest time, this will likely be my last post before I head home on the 13th, in time for Chris' wedding. Expect wedding pictures! I wish you all a wonderfully expectant advent season, full of deep emotions that bring meaning and understanding.

Worshiping the internet god

2007-11-09T22:37:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

Well, I finally hit that point in the semester where it feels like every spare moment must be devoted to school in order to get everything done. And then I realized that doing school work in every spare moment is no way to live. So I'm in a paradox. One thing I've done is to limit my internet use to right before bedtime. This is not only to increase my homework time but also to decrease idolatry in my life. I realized that I'm a compulsive e-mail checker, especially when I'm supposed to be doing homework. And then when I check my e-mail and there's nothing there, I still feel like I deserve a pick-me-up, so I go to Facebook or Flickr or Youtube and waste time trying to lift my spirits. It wasn't until a week ago that I realized that if I didn't check my e-mail in the first place, my spirits wouldn't have to be lifted, and I would stop treating the internet as a drug. So I'm on an internet Ramadan of sorts, and it's really changing my life. I still get internet cravings, but I haven't been giving in. And I'm focusing a lot better, and feeling less guilty. It's a good thing. Now my only distraction is Danice. But she's a much much better distraction, and I would never limit her. And sometimes we actually get work done when we're in the same room.

I've had a couple of great weeks. Don Sparrow was in town, and we hung out at Regent for a while, and enjoyed the fall weather together. Tonight, I got to see Lisa and Terice, who was also visiting from Saskatoon - we had a great supper at the Olde Spaghetti Factory. It's ironic that Saskatoon people are coming to Vancouver, because I'm heading back to Saskatoon in a week! Yep, I'm going back during my reading week, from Nov. 17th to 23rd. I'll be doing dress fittings and bridal showering for Christine's wedding, and I'll be attending my brother Daniel's musical, Les Miserables, in which he will be starring as Jean Valjean. I am so stoked to see him in a musical, because I've missed all his previous ones. Here he is in a picture with one of the Twagalemena girls, from a family of refugees who our church sponsored, who I'm also excited to meet - a picture taken by my cousin Kallie:

Unfortunately, I'm missing Danice's birthday while I'm gone, and I don't think she's going to forgive me anytime soon. So as a peace offering, I dedicate this next part of the blog to her. It is an excerpt from my journal from last year, when I was taking Exegesis class (exegesis is about finding out what the Bible meant in the context of the people it was originally written for). Since Danice is taking Exegesis right now, it may apply:

"I was thinking about how exegesis is changing the way I read the Bible. I will be much less likely to treat it as a bank of verses on various topics from which I can select at will some that please me and support what I happen to be trying to say. It's cool to trace the author's line of thought and see what context he spoke in - it puts the words back in his mouth. I was also thinking how I need an exegesis of my life. I know God is the author, and he's carefully crafting it, inserting common themes here and there, meaningful experiences, perhaps chiasms and purposeful repetition, building to some unknown climax. The problem is that I'm stuck in a verse. If my life were a book, I would be stuck on the page, looking out, trying to see the words behind me and squinting at the ones ahead. I need someone, or many people, to look at me and exegete me, to trace my historical context, to draw a diagrammatic outline of what God's up to in me, to point out how the parts fit into the whole - to tell me who I am! Because when I try, I feel like I'm picking from the verse bank again, just picking out details that seem to support what I feel like supporting in my life on any given day, that make me into the person I happen to feel like being. Exegete me!"

Anyway, Danice has helped to exegete me (as many of you who are reading have helped me). I thank you for the way you've shown me more of who I am, and although I feel freaked out about the idea of being a pastor (especially considering taking 'Preaching and Worship' class next semester... yikes), I'm feeling a little more settled into my skin this year than I did when I wrote this journal entry. And I hope I can return the favor and let you know what I see God doing 'big-picture' in you, too.

From our little kitchen to yours

2007-10-16T16:02:00.001-07:00

It's time I shared with you some of Danice and Beth's greatest eating secrets. I don't want to overwhelm you with our cooking prowess, which is so impressive that it can't be contained in our kitchen, so this first installation will only deal with snack-like food. I will try to keep the instructions simple so you can follow along easily.

P.S. In writing this, I am obviously procrastinating from reading a book I have to read and review by Monday, called "Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch"... enough said.

Crackers and Cheese - a delightful twist on an old favorite

1. Buy Wheat Thins and Philadelphia Cream Cheese.
2. Take a Wheat Thin and drag it through the cream cheese.
3. Eat.

Peanut Butter Ice Cream - a "Fun Ugly" staple dessert.

1. Dish out vanilla ice cream. Don't be ashamed to buy the cheap no-name stuff ... it will be made edible by the next step.
2. Add one tablespoon of peanut butter. If you use the same spoon you used to scoop the ice cream, make sure you don't leave any ice cream residue in the peanut butter jar. This can look like mold, and your roommate might throw out the peanut butter due to her irrational fear of mold. Wait a minute... does peanut butter go moldy?
3. Add chocolate sauce. Heat it first if you want to get really fancy.
4. Add chocolate chips (unless you hate it when your chocolate chips freeze and get too crunchy in your ice cream. I don't mind.)
5. If you're Danice and you're CRAZY, add marshmallows.
6. Stir vigorously until well blended.
7. Eat. Slowly. Avoid brain freeze.

Yogurt-covered raisins - the only reason to go to Safeway.

1. Go to Safeway.
2. Find the bulk bins.
3. Fill a plastic bag with yogurt-covered raisins.
4. Pay for them. Earn 0.00258 Air Miles.
5. Eat. (You can start eating them on the bus ride home from Safeway.)

Tea and chocolate - a secret I bring to you direct from my time in Belgium.

1. Boil water.
2. Run like a MANIAC to take the kettle off the stove element when it whistles (if you're Danice).
3. Make tea. Chai and Earl Grey are our favorites.
4. If you have just made a sissy fruity kind of tea, pour it out. Those kinds are unacceptable. Herbal is barely acceptable. But peppermint is ok, because it tastes good with chocolate.
5. Alternatively, if there is already tea in the pot from yesterday, you may choose to heat it up in a mug in the microwave. Some tea purists think this is unacceptable. I am not a tea purist.
6. Add sugar and milk to taste. Actually, it works best if you put the sugar and milk in the mug BEFORE you pour in the tea. I learned this from Lindsey Mae, who always makes tea taste good.
7. But if you only read the first sentence of step 6 and you accidentally added the sugar AFTER you poured the hot tea, stir it in and listen to the sound of your spoon against the mug slowly descend in pitch. This is really weird. I swear. Try it. I think it has something to do with the sugar dissolving in the water... I don't know. I'm a biologist, not a chemist.
8. Blow on your tea. You do not want to burn your tongue because you will need it for the next few steps.
9. Take a piece of dark chocolate and place it on your tongue. Do not chew! Show some restraint.
10. With the chocolate balancing on your tongue, take a sip of tea.
11. Let the tea melt the chocolate right down into your tastebuds and savor the warm chocolaty glory.
12. Repeat steps 9-11 until tea and chocolate are gone.
13. Eat. I mean drink.

Cheggels - a recipe created by Rachel Malena (who also coined the name)

1. Get some cheese, an egg, and a bagel. (Is the name making sense yet?)
2. Cut the cheese, fry the egg, and toast the bagel.
3. Combine into a sandwich-like formation.
4. Cook for a couple minutes in the toaster oven to melt the cheese.
5. You may want to add more ingredients... a slice of meat, a tomato, Frank's Hot Sauce.
6. Add more Frank's Hot Sauce.
7. Add lots of salt. (I like salt.)
8. Eat.

Limp Celery Wars - a sport created by Rachel Malena (who also coined the name)

1. When you neglect to eat all your celery before it loses its crunchiness, don't throw it out. That's wasteful.
2. Instead, leave it in the fridge for a while. A couple of weeks should be good.
3. Break off a stalk. It should be quite limp. Give it a couple of shakes.
4. Whip it vigorously at your sister or roommate.
5. Repeat. Your opponent may also whip them at you. Defend yourself as best you can.
6. Eat... No, silly, DON'T eat. That's gross. This is a sport, not a snack.

It must be time for me to return to my book. May I point out that this is my second blog of the week. And my busiest week of school yet. And thus the busy-ness/lack of blogging theory takes another blow. In fact, I believe the two may be inversely related. Only time will tell.

Blog pressure

2007-10-14T23:15:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know, it's been another month without a blog. I'm trying to figure out why I'm not naturally writing as much. I am definitely getting busier... I'm doing a full day at Jacob's Well now, and taking three classes, and TA-ing for one class, and helping with youth at my church, and trying to learn Greek on my own, and participating in a church small group and a Regent community group. And yet I think my brother Daniel is involved in more things than me, and he still has time to play video games. So it can't just be busy-ness.

You might say it's because of Facebook. You might be right. I do visit Facebook often. I visit it when I should be writing papers or sleeping. It's my prime gap-filler, and I think if I added up all the gaps I've filled it with, I could get a whole day back. I've been doing a lot of philosophizing about Facebook lately, discussing its benefits and dangers with friends and family, and searching the web for opinions about it. One smart guy named Derek Draper said that Facebook taps into our craving for "continual surface stimulation" and "activities that are hypnotically shallow." Agreed. But another guy said that Facebook is actually good for re-integrating our postmodern disintegrated selves, because it forces us to portray the same persona to all our groups of friends. My Facebook friends from church see the same page, same notes, same pictures as my Facebook friends from elementary school. On a more personal level, I have found that Facebook can foster some resentful and stalker-ish tendencies in me, such as when I see a friend's pictures of a party I wasn't invited to. But it can also remind me to pray for and pursue conversation with people whose status updates pop up on my home page. It reminds me that God has blessed me with a large network of people who have helped shape who I am today. And mostly, it helps me remember people's birthdays. So the verdict is still out... any further thoughts on this social networking phenomenon?

Really, though, I think I'm avoiding blogging because I'm feeling this pressure to write something profound. I have been having a lot of profound thoughts lately, but none of them have really fit the blog format. But you know, I don't think I need to wait for the profound thoughts. I'm just going to write what I feel like writing.

So, in a very non-profound way, I will share with you some things I did over this past week, which was one of Regent's reading weeks (no classes! yay!) In no particular order...

- Ate Thanksgiving dinner at the home of someone I barely knew, and discovered their great hospitality.
- Learned about the huge issue of human trafficking in Vancouver... and the brothel that is 9 blocks away from my house.
- Survived and learned from a very difficult conflict with an acquaintance. (I'm not good with conflict. Yet.)
- Watched a pointless Film Festival movie.
- Picked up a beautiful leaf and pressed it in my book.
- Spent a wonderful day with my Saskatoon friend, Tall Jordan. Ate nachos on the beach, saw "Across the Universe," and learned about "opportunity cost".
- Had second annual camp night in the living room with roommates and friends... sleeping in a tent... roasting marshmallows over the electric stove element...
- Watched a couple episodes of the mind-blowing documentary "Planet Earth". You. Must. Check. This. Out. It is not only for the biology geeks like myself. Danice likes it.
- Successfully avoided catching Danice's cold.
- Tried a pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks, and enjoyed it.
- Preached to the geese.

- Planned 4 youth events with my fellow youth leaders.
- Read a depressing book for "Pastoral Ethics" class about a pastor who sexually abused several women in his congregation.
- Participated in two protests... one for Burma, and one for the homeless, which involved taking an afternoon nap with a hundred other people in front of the Olympic Countdown Clock in Vancouver.
- Watched a very disturbing documentary called "Jesus Camp".
- Attended the UBC Apple Festival and ate a caramel apple, along with Jodi, Michelle, Dale, Danika and Callie. This is a picture of Dale and Callie (who got a little tired of apples).

- Saw a kingfisher hover in midair for over 10 seconds.
- Edited my professor's class notes (the one I am TA-ing for) with new cues for powerpoint slides.
- Studied at several coffee shops around the city.
- Waited on hold for an hour for the tech support guys to answer and fix our internet phone.
- Sat on my rock and prayed... and God answered one prayer today.
- Met Jodi and Michelle's bunny, Franklin.
- Developed a taste for Annie Lennox.
- Created a zucchini/tomato pasta dish.
- Drank a lot of tea.
- Did some long math problems with Jane at Jacob's Well.
- Made a lot of progress on the puzzle that has been sitting unfinished on our living room floor for a month.
- Spent a lot of time with Danice. Man, she's great.

Ok. I resolve to do this more often. You can hold me accountable. :)

How Harry Potter is Improving my Spiritual Life

2007-09-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

Don’t worry…no Harry Potter spoilers in here!

So… I haven’t written anything in a while. I have learned that writing is a discipline, and when it got a little harder to write this summer (no internet at camp, no time to reflect on anything…), I didn’t try very hard to keep up. If there are any readers left out there, I will try to do better in the coming months, so you can keep up with me, and so I can improve my writing.

Lots has happened since I last wrote… mostly, camp. Camp was full of challenges and joys, as usual. The staff rocked, I felt more comfortable in my role this year, having done the same thing last summer, lots of lives were changed, including mine, and nobody was seriously injured. I learned about leadership, especially when it comes to facing conflict instead of running from it. One highlight was when Danice, Lindsey and Cara visited from Vancouver. Another was leading the MDT program. (I wish I could elaborate, but it would take too much writing!) It was awesome to build on relationships from last summer, especially with the girl staff – it was so satisfying to encourage them and to have their trust, and to see them serving God so faithfully. It reminded me of why I want to do the MDiv, and I need those reminders so I don’t run away from my calling.

Now I’m back in the Couv, back near my Rock (which is unfortunately covered in graffiti), and back with my roommates, including one new roommate from St. Lucia, in the Caribbean! I start school on Monday. The past week has been a great time to relax, visit the art gallery, volunteer at school, eat and catch up with friends, and swim in the ocean across the street, which is salty, unlike the lake water I’m used to. This morning Danice and I went to the park to pick blackberries. As I tried in vain to avoid the thorns (no pain no gain), I thought about what I should write a blog about, and I decided to share some thoughts about Harry Potter.

My brother Daniel first got my family into Harry Potter. I think my parents started reading it along with him, just to make sure it was kosher, and then we all got hooked. At first I was shy about reading these “children books” – I remember trying to hide the cover while reading it on the bus to university. Now I will gladly proclaim my love for JK Rowling. Not only my love, but my gratitude for the way her writing has spurred me on to follow God, especially in this last book.

Let me see if I can explain this… I think fiction has a strange power, especially the epic, adventurous kind, like Harry Potter. Stories where the characters are becoming aware that their lives have a grand purpose, that their actions and choices could impact the future of the world. If you’re like me, you get caught up in these stories, you’re rooting for Harry and company, you’re emotionally attached and involved in another world. This is what makes you keep reading even though people accuse the book of being full of demonic activity or too predictable in style. You get abnormally excited when the truth and the good are the winners, when life prevails and hope prevails.

And here is why these stories stir us and create longing in us… at least I think this is why… it’s because they are true. They are all versions of a true story, they all point to the truest and forgotten-est of stories. We are the heroes of this story, but we don’t realize it most of the time. For a few hours, while we’re reading Harry Potter, we get a nostalgic longing to have an adventurous, meaningful life, and we don’t see that God has already written us a part in his story, the one He’s writing in history, the greatest story ever told, and that really, a whole lot hinges on us. The choices we make daily don’t feel life-or-death, but they will affect the way the story turns out in the end. If only we could see it through his eyes! There’s so much we forget. He’s put us in the story for a reason, with a purpose and a calling, and with the gift of helping other people with their callings… there are people we are supposed to become, and there is a kingdom that is coming, the good ultimately conquering the evil.

C.S. Lewis wrote that you could “dip” things in myth to see them more clearly. I think God has dipped my own story in Harry’s story, and it’s given me something to focus on this year. I need to live this year with the same sense of holy urgency that drove Harry to the end of his story. It’s like God is my Dumbledore. He knows something I can’t know yet – he knows what he wants me to do while I’m on earth. But if he came out and told me, I might run away, or at very least I’d try to do things my own way. Instead he has set things up to slowly train me to accomplish my purpose – it’s all perfectly timed, taking into account my constant failure and fear. And the training is happening at school, obviously, but also on the bus and in the grocery store and as I eat supper and sit on a rock at the beach. The important thing is to remember that these things are important, and to look for the lessons in them all. Every day, every minute is crucial; there isn’t a moment to waste. (Of course, my purpose is being accomplished even as I’m being trained. This is one of the things he’s hiding from me most of the time so I don’t get overwhelmed or proud.)

So this year, I’m the hero-in-training. And I’m not so arrogant to think I’m the main character of the story, but not so ignorant to think that I’m just part of the background scenery. Right now, it’s giving my life a lot of forward momentum. I really need to read more fiction.

We have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget. (Chesterton, Orthodoxy)

Christoper

2007-06-16T21:18:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

I have officially moved in at camp now. We're currently internet-less, so I may not be posting as much. Although I'm posting fairly infrequently now anyway...

I'm in the same room and the same bed as last summer, and it's funny how "same" it feels. I realized all of the same things I realized my first night last summer... Oh yeah, this room is really hot all the time. Oh yeah, there's tons of mosquitoes to be killed every night before I sleep. Oh yeah, this bed is lopsided... I'll have to stuff a blanket under there. But really, it's a good room.

Last week, we had a visit from three people who work at KBK, one of our sister Baptist camps in Fort Qu'Appelle, in Southern SK. We had a great time swapping ideas for games, songs, and staff training. We even decided to swap some senior staff for a week this summer! Seriously. We're going to switch 7 cabin leaders. I think it's going to be awesome.

We decided to take them out for ice cream on Thursday night. We drove to the tiny town of Christopher Lake and tried one place with a huge sign spray-painted "open", and it apparently wasn't open. It's actually quite interesting how many businesses in Christopher Lake have permanently painted the word "open" on their buildings... we were out of ice cream options. So we did what any good bunch of Baptist ministry leaders would do... we took them drinking and dancing at the Silver Bullet bar. I can't believe I haven't checked out that bar until now. The people there are so kind, way past what we deserved for the small number of drinks we bought. They set up the karaoke machine for us (and once we started singing, they probably wished they hadn't!), they let us play pool for free, and they let us play with their cat. We talked about social justice and evangelism and music and politics.

The only minor crisis of the week was the call from our T-shirt company saying "we're almost done printing your Quest shirts, but we realized that we've been missing a letter in the text and printing 'the Quest at ChristoPER Lake' instead of 'the Quest at ChristoPHER Lake'..." It was actually kind of my fault because I approved the final design for the shirts and I missed the mistake! But no worries, they fixed them all.

What else has happened since I last wrote?... Well, I went to Borden, which is another small town in Saskatchewan, and I attended their grade 12 graduation ceremony, although I knew none of the grads. I was driving Robyn there, and then she wanted me to stay. But actually, we couldn't get in because there wasn't enough seating, so we just walked around Borden (in fact, I think we saw the whole town), and it was deserted, because everyone was at the grad! So that was different. I also went birdwatching and photographing with Rose and Abbey near Delisle, another small town (apparently this is the theme of this blog post). We saw some great birds... coots, grebes, a couple American avocets, some yellow-headed blackbirds... and we even saw a few muskrats! It was a lot of fun. Here's a picture Abbey took of me, taking a picture of a bird.

Well, today I get to drive 8 seniors up to camp! This is our first camp, so please pray for us. The non-stop week-after-week craziness of the summer begins today, but it starts off at a slow-ish, "senior" pace... plenty of crokinole and puzzles. Here's hoping my crokinole skills have improved since last year...

Oh man! I almost forgot to tell you the exciting news! Christine, my best of all Saskatonian friends, and her boyfriend Dan are... engaged! The wedding will probably be in mid-December, so I might have to move exams around to be part of it. Hopefully "my best friend's wedding" is a good enough excuse!

My Vancouver friends begin their road trip to Saskatoon a week from today... I'm counting down!

Don't inhale

2007-06-02T21:17:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess I'm on blogging vacation right now. It's funny that I seem to blog less now that I don't have any homework... I think there might be a connection there.

Today was a really perfect day. It was hot outside. I went from 2 extra blankets two nights ago to only a sheet last night. This morning I helped out with an inner city clean-up that my church was volunteering at - picking up garbage in back alleys. My team was having an unofficial contest for weirdest piece of garbage found. I found a whole fish, all dried up. My dad found a chess piece - the king. Another person found dentures. I think she unofficially won the unofficial contest. I think the best find of the day was a vacant lot that would be absolutely perfect for an urban garden. There's even perennials growing there already. It used to be a garden. There's no gate, and a path runs through it. Maybe I could inspire a Jacob's Well-ian urban gardening movement here... too bad my church isn't in the inner city... Later in the day, I spent a lot of time reading, I went for ice cream with my parents, and I took some pictures of flowers. I think the only bad part of the day was two minutes ago, when I accidentally inhaled some toothpaste, straight down my throat. I don't recommend this - it got me coughing and coughing and I think I wrecked my windpipe.

Which is bad, because I have to do an announcement about camp at church tomorrow morning. I haven't really figured out what to say. I'm going to go to church with my dad 2 hours early. He will finish his sermon and I will prepare my announcement. Really what I want to say is "You all had better sign up for camp, because camp is only a third full, and it's going to suck if we don't have any people." But I think that's a little harsh. I need Rachel's help. She's tactful. (But seriously, pray for the camp if you think of it... we really are praying for more campers.)

Let's see... what else... well, I suppose I promised I'd write about the wedding and sleeping in a tent. The wedding was great. My favorite part was when both candlelighters arrived at their candles and simultaneously, their candles went out, and they looked anxiously at each other, then ran back up the aisle! I love little moments that lighten the mood at weddings. And I didn't sleep in a tent! Because of the rain, us "singles" decided to sleep in the "living area" of the hunting lodge where the "couples" of the group were staying. Unfortunately, this is also the area where 6 deer heads were affixed to the wall. I believe that explains my strange animals-coming-alive-and-killing-people dreams while I was there... Here's a picture of Rachel doing her best deer head imitation.

All in all, though, it was a good trip. We got to hang out with the newest batch of puppies, and we met the first member of the third generation at Homowebmape: 6-month-old Caleb. I took a lot of cute pictures. Oh yeah - another great story - we're driving to Brownfield as a family, and we're in Alberta when dad realizes he forgot his debit card at Tim Horton's. This wouldn't normally be a big deal, but him and my mom were planning on leaving from Brownfield to go to Calgary and fly to San Francisco for a week for his convocation. And my mom left her debit card at home for us. So they were money-less. The best part was the initial conversation in the car.

Dad: "Kids, how much money do you have on your debit cards?"
Rachel: "8 dollars".
Dad: "Um... Daniel?"
Daniel: "100 dollars."
Dad: "Beth?"
Beth: "I don't know.... maybe 400 dollars?"
Dad: "Is that the best we can do, kids?"

They took my debit card, but I don't think they even used it. They're so frugal. Frugal even though my dad is now a doctor. Haha. A doctor of ministry.

Well, I have a couple weeks left of work before I move up to camp for the summer. Mostly I'm looking forward to June 25th, when 3-4 of my good friends from Vancouver are taking a road trip to come visit me! Having Saskatoon as a destination for a road trip is pretty much unheard of in Vancouver. That's how much they love me. We're going to hang out in Saskatoon and then up at camp. I really can't wait...

Boring, perhaps.

2007-05-18T19:21:00.000-07:00

This may well be the longest it's taken me to post a blog (2 and a half weeks!) and the most boring blog I've written. But I thought I would write. In case you started thinking I died.

Since "boring" is the theme, why don't I start with the weather? Today I called up to camp, 2 hours north of here, and it was snowing. It wasn't much warmer here in Saskamatoon. I am sleeping in a tent all weekend, and here's hoping the weather improves. But at least I will be in Alberta. Maybe they're stashing all the warm weather somewhere over there. My family is driving out for our annual Homowebmape gathering (see blog from May last year). It will be different this time, though, because one of us is getting married - Ashlyn Webber. That doesn't usually happen, so it will be fun to participate.

How have I been so busy that I haven't blogged, you ask? Well, I work 9 to 5 now. Which is easier than the life of a student in many ways, especially because at 5, you're done. No homework. You can do what you want with the evening. I have mostly read books, watched "Lost" (a very good substitute for "Alias") and gone for coffee. Actually, coffee is a theme for me right now, because that's what I do for a living. I take potential camp staff out for coffee in informal job interviews. Except that I don't like coffee, so I usually purchase a hot non-coffee beverage. I'm not going to lie, it's a pretty sweet job. I do other things too, things that involve sitting at a desk and not doing any exercise to work off all the hot non-coffee beverages. And in the evenings, I sit some more. Good thing I'm going up to camp in a few weeks, where the potential for my body moving around is slightly higher.

Otherwise, I'm just enjoying life with the family for a while. I love when we're all around the table for a meal. And I'm looking forward to the road trip this weekend. Next week it will be just us kids, because my parents are going to San Francisco for my dad's Doctor of Ministry convocation. Rachel will take over the role of "mom", because she's feeling domestic lately. I will be the eldest daughter, and I will help out when required, such as in the cooking of butter chicken. Daniel will mostly sing falsetto for us, because he will soon be auditioning for the role of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables at his school, and the song is very high.

Also... I am learning Greek. I have a goal to test out of the first semester of Greek and take semester 2, so I'm trying to do a little bit every day. Danice gave me a textbook and I bought a workbook on Amazon. We'll see if I can keep it up when I'm at camp.

Emotionally, I've settled down a bit. Sometimes the pangs of Vancouver memories hit me and I wish I were there, but I think most of my conscious mind has re-rooted itself. Jodi wrote something interesting about feelings of "uprootedness" in an e-mail to me:

"I think this restlessness is probably a good thing, it reminds us that our true home
is with God and that our hearts are and will be restless until we find our
home in him.  How then, to keep the heart soft for that final homecoming when there
are so many home-like-comings and home-like-leavings in the meantime?  And
how do we become more and more integrated rather than more and more
dis-integrated in the process?  It is easy to have different personas in
different places.  But perhaps the preparation for our final homecoming is
to bring those different personas together into the image-bearers we were
created to be."

I think this is very true in my life. I don't feel like I'm two-faced, but I do feel like different people bring out different sides in me. So besides missing people in Vancouver, I miss the parts of me that aren't as fully expressed when I'm not around them. I miss myself. For example, Danice has a way of bringing out the goofiest side of me, and the part of me that just wants to talk and talk about everything and anything that happened in my day. I don't feel as free to be goofy or to talk like that here, and it's not that I'm uncomfortable doing those things around people here, it's just that it's not as natural. But I love the proud and admiring big sister side that only comes out when I'm here. So maybe it's about figuring out how to express all of these things no matter where I'm at. Or maybe it's about accepting that these are all great parts of me that can take turns. I don't know...

Well, I'm really running out of things to say... I'm sure I'll have more after my tent and wedding escapades this weekend. I promise to write again soon. In the meantime, here are a couple of pictures from a family walk we had by the river. The policemen were herding the geese from the road back to the river. I guess this is what keeps the police busy in Saskatoon - it took four of them, it seems.

Hanging out with the Baptists

2007-05-01T22:16:00.000-07:00

Well, as of today I am a working woman. You can find me at Emmanuel Baptist Church, working for the Quest camp, for the next 5 weeks. I am still feeling quite uprooted and confused, but at least now I'm a productive uprooted-and-confused person. Today's goal was to figure out how to copy information from last year in the computer program we use for our registrations, called "EZ Camp". Turns out it's not so "easy" to use. Actually, it's hands down the most unintelligible and illogical program I've ever tried to make sense of. But today, I conquered it, I made it do what I wanted, and that is a job well done. I also got to know my coworker Jeff a lot better, and I'm getting more and more excited about the way the summer is shaping up.

I must tell you about last weekend. Last weekend I went to Banff to participate in the Baptist Union of Western Canada General Assembly. I thought I was going just to play piano in a worship team a few times, and otherwise goof off with Chris in Banff, maybe hang out with Jodi a bit... but God had much larger plans. He was really sneaky and underhanded this time. He lured me there and got me hooked on my own denomination. You see, I've never been very attached to the idea of being a Canadian Baptist, or even a Baptist. Apparently, this is true of many Baptists. Attending a multi-denominational (trans-denominational?) Bible school certainly hasn't helped. If anything, I've become wary of denominationalism and eager to focus on what we all share as Christians. And I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.

But this weekend I discovered that it's also not a bad thing to feel a sense of belonging to a larger family of churches. I realized that the Canadian Baptist family of churches that I was "born into" - that I did not choose - is also a family that I would gladly choose if given the choice today. This assembly presented me with a seemingly uncool and innocuous group mostly consisting of middle-aged men and women, who were in fact undercover rebels and renegades steering the denomination in a radical direction. I was actually so excited by the kinds of decisions they were making that I sat through a whole morning of business meetings. I saw them pass an ambitious budget, change the denomination's name to bring it into greater solidarity with our sister denominations in Canada, and restructure the board so that more time would be spent "doing" and less time sitting in meetings.

I heard so many stories about churches and ministries moving outside the walls of the church and meeting needs... farmers from rural Alberta sending grain to Kenya during a famine, professors from Carey educating pastors and lay leaders in Africa and Latin America, churches in Vancouver entering into the suffering of Pickton's victims, and found out that my denomination supports ministries I've come to value while at Regent, like A Rocha and REED - showing concern for justice, crying out on behalf of exploited women and the exploited earth. I saw the leadership of the denomination pass to a woman president, and witnessed many male leaders reaffirming the Canadian Baptist belief and practice of ordaining women and expressing their gratitude for the perspective and leadership of their female colleagues. I heard words like "kingdom" and "shalom" repeatedly, and realized that these people are passionate about the same things I've become passionate about at Regent and at Jacob's Well. I saw it written on the faces and in the tears of the leaders as they described the good work that is being done and that is yet to be done. Suddenly people I hadn't even met were affirming my choice to do the M Div, offering to support my education financially and praying for me. I felt a true sense of belonging, something resonated deep inside me, and I could see myself standing on the shoulders of all these new heroes of mine, following in their footsteps.

People who grow up in Christ-following families often speak of a time when they "made the faith their own". I guess you could say this weekend I made the denomination my own. It's obviously not as big a deal, but it's a pretty big deal for me as I look ahead to a career in ministry. I'm still open to God leading me in a different direction, but at this point, whether in pastoring, camping, or missions work, I would be thrilled and proud to work with the Canadian Baptists.

I leave you with some pictures I took on the drive to Banff... which was, to me, a wonderful rediscovery of the beauty of the prairies, an experience that felt like being unfurled and opened up under the big, big sky.

Transitions.

2007-04-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

So it’s been forever. I know. The end got quite busy.

Let’s start with the present and move on from there. I am in my bed in Saskatoon. I’ve slipped back into my other very familiar stream of my life. Everything is almost the same. Except there’s a new bench at the side entrance of my house. The Ford Escort had been totaled and replaced with… a Ford Escort, but a newer model, more sporty. Dad has a couple more grey hairs in his beard. Oh, and there is now a neighbor kid two doors down who practices his bagpipes on his driveway every day after school.

Saskatoon is what Saskatoon is once the snow is almost all gone… brown expanses of dead grass, bare brown trunks of trees, and matted piles of brown leaves from last fall that didn’t get raked because the snow came by surprise. Gravel all over the roads, sprayed there over the winter to make them less slippery. Unlike the ice, gravel doesn’t melt – it has to wait to be washed away. It blows around in the wind, creating desert-like sandstorms and making my eyes dry. Nevertheless, everyone is thrilled, because according to many, it is warm enough to wear shorts and T-shirts. I try not to think about the magnolias and the cherry trees and the daffodils and the drastic reduction of my outdoor color palette, and I comfort myself with the thought that I’ll get to experience spring all over again. Saskatoon really does become beautiful. It may actually be beautiful right now, and I just can’t see it because I have yet to remove my Vancouver glasses.

Don and I were talking today about whether it feels like I’m two different people, and whether I like myself better here or there. I like to see it more as a question of roles. I play much different roles here than there, roles with more history. Which can be good or bad - sometimes history is wonderfully rich, and sometimes it is more limiting. I get to be the proud and loving big sister, and that’s one of my favorite roles. I get to sit on the stairs and listen to Daniel practice singing and playing his sax and remember how crazy talented he is. I get to welcome Rachel home from her backpacking trip in Europe, and jump back into our playful banter and we get to laugh at each other as if the months hadn’t passed. I get to be a daughter and feel my parents’ love more directly. I get to throw wood on the friendships that have been slowly burning over the last four months, through e-mails and phone conversations, the ones that remember me and wait for my return.

But I won’t pretend it wasn’t hard to leave this time. Vancouver and its associated relationships are gripping me more tightly than they have before, and the pain of leaving has made me somewhat melancholy over the past couple of days. I have found a real place at Kits Church in Vancouver, and I don’t want to miss out on what happens there over the summer. I have enjoyed being Gospel Choir member and daily beach visitor and transit supporter. Mostly, I have become attached to my roommates. I remember leaving last year and awkwardly hugging Danice, but this time, I was a blubbering mess, crying halfway to the airport. I have no clue how I ended up with such great roommates, especially having witnessed the much more difficult roommate relationships some of my friends have had. And they really love me too, so much that a couple of them are making a road trip to Saskatoon (an unheard-of road trip destination) to visit me later on this summer! I can’t wait.

I guess I could catch you up on what I haven’t written about in the last month, and tell you about singing in the amazing final Gospel Choir concert, seeing Danice play in a Balinese Gamelon, going to Galiano Island with my Christian Imagination class, and touring around Vancouver with my mom, but I’m trying to live in the moment right now, and this is where I’m at. I’m excited to be here, I’m enjoying taking up some good roles in people’s lives, and I’m happy to get caught up with everyone again, but at the same time, I feel like I’ve left a big piece of myself behind in Vancouver, and I’m still trying to sort through the resulting confusion and ache.

a Vancouver poem

2007-04-11T23:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, I need some feedback on this poem, especially from Vancouverites... I'm presenting it as part of a project this weekend. This project is what I've been so busy with that I haven't been able to blog... along with the exam I'm writing tomorrow morning. Pray for me! More to come soon...
VANCOUVER MAKES ITSELF AT HOME IN ME

One day
when I wasn't
paying attention

I slid the red-soled freighters
over my feet and
plodded leisurely across the water

I felt the stroke of the sea on
my sandstrewn nape;
its tides scattered all my seastar freckles

my hair flowed down in cascading
tresses, coursing into the gutters and
drowning every sidewalk

my fingers crept up through the knuckled branches
of the catalpas lining tenth ave, hands
hardening inside gnarled mossgreen gloves

my back assumed the curve of the downtown skyline,
each gleaming building a glassy vertebra
slotted stepwise into my spine

I meandered through
the evergreen neverbrown of it
the mountainheight oceandepth of it
until it recognized me...

and
all at once
thousands of cherry blossoms
unfurled their blushing flags
across my face

Blue screen (and blue rain) of death

2007-03-23T20:43:00.000-07:00

Someday I will tell you the story I promised, about the Best/Worst Youth Retreat Ever. Suffice to say it involved walking back and forth through the snow, in the rain, for hours, snowboarding for the first time in my life and doing wicked awesome but finding upon reaching the base of the mountain that the power went out, so the chairlifts weren’t working, having to walk up the mountain with the snowboard, one of the youth kids having an asthma attack on the walk up the mountain, and one of the coolest nights of worship and prayer.

The rain has been pretty constant this month. I watched the weather tonight, and it is somehow three degrees warmer in Saskatoon right now than it is in Vancouver. There is something seriously wrong here. I wouldn’t mind so much if rain didn’t make me so COLD. You get wet, and then you’re in buildings that aren’t built for keeping people warm, so you end up colder than in Saskatoon, where you’re only cold for the five seconds it takes to get from the car to the house. Most people are depressed here. Some are very skilled at handling the situation. I saw a lady hold her umbrella between her chin and her shoulder, still keeping her dry as she used both hands to find her bus pass in her purse. Incredible.

I have a worry greater than weather right now, and it is called the blue screen of death. This is the actual term for my problem. Even as I’m typing this, I’m aware that at any moment, without notice, the blue screen of death may appear and my computer will restart. This has been happening at least once a day for the past few days. The blue screen of death says “Commencing physical memory dump.” This does not sound like a good thing. I’ve got everything copied over onto another hard drive, and I’m basically waiting for my computer to finally crash and burn, and saving my documents every few minutes. My dad hopes it will hold until I come home. My back-up plan is Danice’s “extra” computer, which she borrows from her church for youth ministry stuff. It is a Mac Ibook. I’ve never used a Mac. I guess it would be sweet irony to be forced across the vast Mac-PC divide because of memory problems in my PC. We’ll see what happens… but if you think of it, you could pray for my ailing computer.

I spent much of today drinking tea. Because of a weird shortage of volunteers today at Jacob’s Well, and their commitment to send people out in pairs, and a necessary visit to a downtown friend who insists on making inappropriate comments to women (and therefore cannot be visited by them), I had to wait for my fellow volunteers at Mr. Donair. I had loose tea, which is served with a full mint sprig in the mug, and a cup of dates on the side. It was excellent. I read some of Shane Claiborne’s “The Irresistible Revolution,” which is awesome, and makes me excited about being involved at Jacob’s Well. I later had more tea with Pauline, the 92-year old woman who started Jacob’s Well, and for the past 30 years has been walking the streets of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, talking to all of her friends on the street, a practice she continues to this day. Pauline believes in the power of Scripture to change people, and she often gives little slips of paper with Bible verses to her friends. She rarely finds these slips discarded on the street. Talking to her is quite the experience… one minute she’s talking about how someone wanted to murder her, and then became her friend, the next minute she’s speaking forcefully about the need to command demons out of people, and then she looks at her watch and says it’s time she went home to feed her cat, Marmalade.

Well, I should get to my work… one major assignment to accomplish weekly until the semester ends three weeks from now. I’ll leave you with a challenging quote from Claiborne’s book…

“When the church becomes a place of brokerage rather than an organic community, she ceases to be alive. She ceases to be something we are, the living bride of Christ. The church becomes a distribution center, a place where the poor come to get stuff and the rich come to dump stuff. Both go away satisfied (the rich feel good, the poor get clothed and fed), but no one leaves transformed. No radical new community is formed. And Jesus did not set up a program but modeled a way of living that incarnated the reign of God, a community in which people are reconciled and our debts are forgiven just as we forgive our debtors (all economic words). That reign did not spread through organizational establishments or structural systems. It spread like disease – through touch, through breath, through life. It spread through people infected by love.”