The Early Bird

The early bird catches the worm.
Ugh.
How many blissful late-morning breezes carrying how many whimsical, fluffy, white cumulonimbus in a dance around a warm, smiling sun have been missed because of this early rising, worm catching joy killer?
The early bird.
The mythical figure of punctuality, work ethic and persevering effort who judges me from his well stocked perch as my morning unfolds languidly and purposelessly before him.
Beneath him.
The early bird.
How I try and fall short of the glory of the early bird.
No matter my frenzy and toil, I never measure up.
Even when I get up early and accomplish so much! That early bird still seems to be judging me. I mean how many times have I laid my head down on the pillow at night feeling like I have successfully "caught the worm" so to speak.
Do we ever actually catch the worm?
For the early bird it's so simple; he gets up and catches one worm.
Is it really that simple for us?

I've been reading the sermon on the mount.
I've been reading it over and over.
I got stuck on "blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth".
It doesn't make sense, like much of what Jesus said (no offence to you, the Author and Perfecter, the Beginning and the End... but I'm just the imperfect, somewhere in the middle reader and I don't get it).
So, I've been stuck here at meekness. Wondering all about it.
I read a definition of meekness in one concordance which says:

Meekness toward God is that disposition of spirit in which we accept His dealings with us as good, and therefore without disputing or resisting. In the OT, the meek are those wholly relying on God rather than their own strength to defend against injustice. Thus, meekness toward evil people means knowing God is permitting the injuries they inflict, that He is using them to purify His elect, and that He will deliver His elect in His time (Isa 41:17, Luk 18:1-8). Gentleness or meekness is the opposite to self-assertiveness and self-interest. It stems from trust in God's goodness and control over the situation. The gentle person is not occupied with self at all. This is a work of the Holy Spirit, not of the human will (Gal 5:23).

And I didn't get that either.

So I thought about it over and over.
Meekness is choosing to receive everything without resistance or self interest because it comes from a good God for our good.
All evil is his refinement.
His Authoring of a story that is full of Perfecting Purposes.

Meekness.
God, in control, disciplining.
When someone is chewing gum really loudly beside me.
When Shane follows the car in front of us too closely.
When I have to wait my turn.
When I am misunderstood.
When people I love let me down.
When people I love lose things and people they love.
When accidents happen.
When death and disease happen.

Blessed are the meek.

I keep reading this over and over.
Trying to understand.
Blessed are those who receive every hard, bad, painful thing as a sign of love. As evidence of family ties to Our Father.
Blessed are those who don't work toward their own interest or try to further their own gain.
Theirs is the earth.

That doesn't make any sense!
I thought it was the early bird that got the worm!
I thought it was the one who earned it!
The one with the can-do attitude.
The one with the work ethic.

Blessed are those who don't work toward their own interest, or rely on their own strength, or resist anything - be it injustice or injury - because it's all rooted somehow, in God's goodness.
They get the worm.
The earth.
(Earth worm?!)

No can-do attitude.
No early rising.
No one legging up.
No ahead of the pack getting.

There's enough, more than enough, the whole earth available for those not working to earn or capture it.
For those not bound to or grasping it.

And they don't just get it.
They inherit it.
Somehow indicating that maybe the worm was never really up for grabs.
The whole thing, the whole earth, belongs to someone, the Someone who will one day decide who gets what.
The criteria of which never seems to be a timecard.

So maybe, for now, the early bird gets his worm.
But the meek? They inherit the earth!
That sounds like something worth getting up for.

Caveman

The sweet, earthy scent of freshly cut grass wafts through the open window on the gentle morning breeze and greets me while I sit in contemplation. It rouses me from the quiet, inward conversation with you, closer than my breath, and I am led into the great, cosmic conversation you are having all around me. I lean in to listen. I hear the birds from their perches amid the new buds of the trees sing the song my heart wrote for you, the song we all sing and will always sing. I see the branches dancing to the joyful tune, the clouds - now parting, now coming together - to wash them in shadows and light. I see that it is good. You made it all good. And I drink in that goodness like a long awaited glass of cold water.

You invite me to seek first the kingdom.
The hidden kingdom.
The here, but not fully here, kingdom.
The treasure of great value.
The thing it was your glory to conceal.
The think it is my glory to seek out.

And you say,
My dove is hiding behind the rocks, behind the outcrop on the cliff. Let me see your face; let me hear your voice. For your voice is pleasant and your face is lovely.
Song of Songs 2:14

And I wonder, am I part of this hidden treasure of your kingdom? Am I buried somewhere in need of excavation and recovery? You say I am hiding behind rocks, concealing my face, stilling my voice. Did I run into the cave when I heard you coming, just like my mother Eve?

Oh to be this tree. To be so fully who I was created to be without the slightest hesitation, confusion or insecurity. To stand so majestic and self-assured! To be so fully occupied with worship as to not even consider myself. Oh to be this tree who knows exactly who he is and has no need of the knowledge.

I don’t know how to bare myself - like these trees. Like the morning breeze. Open and honest. But you say I am lovely. You say my voice is pleasant.

So I give you what I have, from where I hide, a caveman awaiting rescue.

Sidewalk Chalk

Musings.

The girls laboured all afternoon. Sun kissed and radiant as they played like children. Their unlikely project? Covering the concrete step, where the buskers sit, in sidewalk chalk. It was hours that they devoted - laughing as they laboured away the sunny, Sunday afternoon.
Where were the buskers that day? Maybe enjoying a Sabbath respite, letting other artists fill the streets with other kinds of art. Maybe hungover.

But today, the step is clear. Mostly clear. There lingers just the faintest outline of a rainbow, only visible to the keen and determined eye. The eye determined to see it. Everything else washed away. All the rest disappeared into the street with last night’s deluge of rain. All the rest just vanished like the notes of the song now playing, caught up in the wind before anyone got a chance to enjoy them.

But the busker plays them anyway.

I guess it makes me wonder, what is it all for? The chalk on the step? The song in the wind?
Something in me is awakening, yearning, leaning, pressing, longing.
Something in me is tapping my foot.
Something in me is picking up this soundless melody - perceiving invisible colours - dreaming intangible dreams.

What is it all for? Too hard to say. Too impossible to say. To limiting to try.
I just want to be a part of it.
I want to be a part of making things beautiful, even if it can’t last forever.
I want to offer something that might disappear into the breeze, or run down the drain.

But I am scared to.

I am scared to let beauty live in the eye of the beholder and not chronicled in some folder for posterity. I am scared to let Margo say her first word only to have it caught up in the wind - a first fruits sacrifice. I want to save every moment, every wave, every babbled nonsensical word, every wet, open-mouthed kiss. Every cuddle. Every brave attempt at standing. I want to canonize her life - recording and curating her. Making sure I don’t miss anything. Don’t lose anything.

But she is slipping through my fingers. Shapeshifting before my eyes, shedding the very skin I’m aching to kiss forever as she outgrows it. And she isn’t mine. She doesn’t belong to me. She’s like the sidewalk chalk on the busker’s step. She’s like this song on the wind. The more I try to memorize the less I actually hear. The more I try to save the more clearly I see every note caught up in the wind as it floats through the trees and out over the ocean

I’m scared to spend myself and have nothing to show for it. Nothing left over. I’m scared to dream these big dreams because they reach as far as the stars - stars I could never hold in my hands and keep.

But. What else is there?
But. I’m just a wisp of smoke anyway. Here today. Gone tomorrow.
No matter how much I record.
So maybe it’s in the letting go I am remembered.
So maybe it isn’t saving every moment that will show Margo that she is loved. Maybe it’s not in the holding on.
Maybe in the letting go, maybe in the wasting, the spending, the throwing into the wind, the faint impression of my life’s love, poured out in reckless abandon, could still show up somewhere, hidden in her, when the sun hits her just right.

Chapter Three

I feel like I'm entering the next chapter in the story of my life.
And as a writer, if I still am one, if I ever was one, I feel the need to leave some record of the metamorphosis for posterity. Who should require this posterity? Perhaps only my own vanity. But I hope not. I hope there is value in the telling.

I know it must be a new chapter because my own self offends me. I read my past descriptions of 'who I am' on this blog and it chafes like an ill-fitting wool sweater -itchy and small in the armpits. I'm squirming to get out of it and put on something new, something that breathes. I'm desperate to crack out of this small shell and discover what's actually happening in the world. I've become weary of my narcissistic wonderings: 'who I am' and 'what am I doing' and 'where am I going'. Instead I've discovered infinitely more engaging questions: Who is my Lord? And what is He doing?

There is also the issue of the burgeoning life in my womb. I carry with me an unborn child who beckons me into something, or is it that she's causing me to become aware of something already underway. Dare I name it "maturity"? Whatever this is, it feels an awful lot like growing up.

So I am becoming a disciple.
I am becoming a mother.
And the two are equally terrifying.

Both realities cause me to lift my eyes and wonder at the depravity of my world, my city, my own soul. Both realities cause me to lean hard into the Spirit I am only just getting to know and hear.

How can I get ready for a baby to come? How do I prepare for the King of Kings to come? Both are imminent. And both have already changed my life even though I've never met them face-to-face.

Beyond that I cannot say what the chapter is about. I suppose I will only learn in its telling.

Save Our Church, Indeed

Saskatoon’s downtown has a number of old, stately churches that quietly hold up the city’s skyline. Whimsically I wonder what it would be like to worship in buildings of such beauty and history, to stand united with the generations of Christians that have gone before. Does God manifest with more holiness when surrounded by opulence and serenity, quiet and dignity? It all looks so reverent. So fit for a king.

The sheen wore off a little when I walked past the billboard outside 3rd Avenue United Church the other day. At first I thought the message was a prayer.

“SAVE OUR CHURCH”

It quickly became obvious however; the message was not to God at all. Alas, it was a fundraising campaign. The unfortunate (read: heretical) choice of words reveals the faithless core which is perhaps less audibly announced in so many other of our city’s churches. Turns out the grass is not greener on the more stately side of the field. We’re all eating the same stale cud, waiting for the same rain from the same dry sky. All of us sniffing around the same wells for water that will always leave us thirsty again.

Save our church?! Are we really looking to our wandering congregations, to the lost souls outside our closed doors to come and save us, validate us, bring us back from the brink of irrelevance?

And then Jesus.

I guess he’s not fooled by the beautiful stone structure on 3rd, or our oversized quonset on the city's outskirts. He sees the heart of his beloved. He knows those on whom his saving power is not lost. Feebly, inarticulately I echo with those who have gone before – Lord, save your church!

Only you can.

On earth as in heaven.

Liberate Christ from Christmas

Spring has descended on our city with a breath of fresh air. All those dusty, dirty, dead things still lying around since last year are being swept up into this scouring of sunshine and sweet breezes. Tree buds poke their noses into springy scents and sigh with relief. Winter is finally over! We are a liberated people. So, Mr. B. and I were cruising downtown Sunday morning to enjoy a pre-church meander by the river. It was the kind of morning that seems like a movie. No wind. No ripple on the river (is that even possible?!) and the air held an almost mist-like dreaminess. I was drifting into my happy zone, coffee in hand. Is anything better than springtime in love? Leave it to me, I guess, to find a distraction. In this dreamlike haze I was suddenly provoked by a bumper sticker I read on the car in front of me. Now when I say provoked, I mean provoked. The kind of provoked that warrants flipping the bird, if one were prone to do so, or saying something really rude like, “Get behind me Satan!”. At first I could not even identify my source of anger. It was simple enough. “Christian”, even.

Keep Christ in Christmas. Without time for consideration I began yelling from our car, “No! Please, Lord! We can’t keep you in Christmas! Not even death could keep him! Do not stay in Christmas! Get out! Do not limit yourself to this consumerist, one-day-only, falsely advertised event that barely hints at your glory! Get out of that manger scene prison! Get out of those lame-ass greeting cards that demean your power. Manifest instead in each of the other 364 days of the year you made with your conquered-the-grave power and your created-the-heavens-and-earth beauty! Bust out of Christmas, Lord! Bust out of our lame churches that preach mediocre news at best and stand on the street corners with a loud speaker of love.” By this time Shane is beginning to wonder if I’ve lost my mind. Probably by now he’s lost interest in our morning walk. But I’m literally nearly in tears! Is this what we’ve reduced him to? A fight for a shout-out in our kids’ school plays before a week of gluttony and excess? Keep Christ in Christmas. I dare you to try! Yeah, yeah. I know the argument. I know that Christmas should be about Jesus. I've heard the conspiracy about Xmas being a way to cut out the Christ. Honestly, I sometimes think Jesus would be the first to cross his name out of Christmas. I feel like this weekend I got a taste of how soft-core our faith can be and I find myself gagging on this lukewarm fodder. Let’s liberate Christ from Christmas. Let’s take him to the streets! Let’s bring him to work! Let’s unleash him in out churches. Let’s try, if just for today, to remember that he is already in us, keeping us in him. We are a liberated people!

Me and U2

Alone.
At.
Last.
Can I even remember the last time this happened?
Just me?
Me and U2.
Spoke too soon. Never mind.
Door opens.
One, two, three girls.
Oh well, I had that half hour - punctuated only by the whiff of the pungent diaper I found under the couch.
Oh but I love them.
I'll try again later.
Tonight is now Me, U2, and these three. Somehow the math does not end in an evening of contemplation and writing.
To be continued...

I'm not ready to be a mother...

Newlywed question from day one: so, are you thinking about kids?

I can feel prying, busy-body eyes raking my abdomen for signs of expansion. I'm self-conscious of bloated days for fear it will all be misunderstood. But when I think about the eventuality of motherhood I picture process. It starts with stretch-marks and cravings. Late night wake up calls and messy diapers. Bonked heads and first words.
Perhaps that's why I'm reacting so violently to my first tastes of mother-hood. No process! I skipped right from newly-wed to up-all-night-worried-sick-mother.
Somehow Shane and I became parents and our kid is already 18. And she has a kid. (So I guess we also get diapers and late night crying) Does that make us grandparents?
I'm not sure how anyone does this parenting thing. How do you survive when your girl is out in the world, all night, and you're not sure she's okay?
When did they get big enough to go it alone?
When did I?
Crash course for beginners I guess.

Summer Drive

The helmet didn't fit.
I cinched the strap so tight I couldn't swallow, but that didn't matter much.
There was a bad, black brute of a motorcycle beneath me, the man of my dreams pinched tightly between my knees and the freshly paved highway rushing swiftly by. A summer drive. Strictly for pleasure.
The distant fear that the loose helmet would be impotent to protect did nothing to dampen the joy of it all...the life in the surging wind and the roaring engine.
Can't swallow? Spit.
Sitting on a bench just off the highway we licked heaping ice-cream cones. $1.50 for a week's ration of sweet strawberry cream that the sun licked faster than me. I let the sticky runoff roll down the cone and pool on the ground.
On the ride home bugs rushed to their deaths against my jeans, my face, between my fingers, the sticky guts surprisingly cool on such a hot day. I smiled up to the sky, warmed by the blazing sun, kissed by the hot wind. I sucked in as much as I could. I'll need this memory when the days get shorter and the wind stops kissing and starts biting.

test- one- two

ehhem.
Excuse me.
I feel somewhat conspicuous showing up here after all this time. Am I alone again in cyber space?
It feels quiet.
Just me tonight and my laptop. Cheese-bun, check. Ooooh, glass of Cabernet, check. And a wonderful, secret, miracle.
I just couldn't keep it to myself.

The Lord can do whatever he wants to do whenever he wants to do it. That (*snap*) fast. If he wants to. Which after all the waiting and the silence and the sadness, he did. Today he wanted to bring the Kingdom to my little corner of the planet. Because he loves me. And all of us.

So the story goes something like this.

Once upon a time a good man with a messy life died. He had four kids he loved very much with two separate women who did not feel similarly about each other. The kids loved their dad, each other and their respective mothers. Upon his death shit got messy. Some kids felt they were left out. Some kids were trying to do the best they could do and ended up hurting other kids. It was messy. Pretty soon no one was speaking to each other. Somewhere in the mess everyone began to suspect the definition of family had changed.

Until today.

It started out a little jerky, a touch awkward. The sun was still warm and the breeze (with that promise of coming fall) smelled like blooming flowers and warm grass. But my littlest bro and I joined the throngs of teenagers at the mini-golf place close to his house. We played 18 holes (3 of them twice) of mini golf together like siblings who love each other. Which we are. Our other two brothers were no yet able to join us. But they'll come around. When the time is right, when they least expect, God will break their hearts too.

Highlight of the evening:
Me: Okay J, good to see you.
Him: Hey, I thought my name was Fat Tony (smiles)
Me: Oh yeah. I guess I said if I ever stopped calling you that it was because you were getting fat!
Him: You said you'd call me Slim Jim if I got fat.
Me: Oh yeah, well, Fat Tony it is.
Him: Yeah. Ok. See ya.

Riding my bike home tonight I just knew that I had two fathers in heaven smiling down on me.

Thanks for giving me my brother back.
(One down...three to go.)

Valentine's

It’s amazing how the sun’s rays can feel as satisfying as a long, wet kiss; it’s warmth as comforting as a familiar embrace. The day is unfolding like a delicately wrapped gift; every hour pulls back a corner of tissue from this hidden gem.

I’m endeavoring to look as elegant as I feel by perching a poppy-red, wide-brimmed hat on my head. Go figure. My head is too big. I wonder if I inherited the immense Carroll head as God’s idea of an obvious metaphor. Today I don’t even mind if he is mocking me. I feel his love everywhere. I see it in my best-friend’s belly bobbing in the water, ripe with my unborn niece. I see it in my mom’s dark skin, gleaming in the hot afternoon sun. I see it dancing in the hem of my aunt’s wrap as she sits elegant and demure in the shade of the umbrella.

This week away in Arizona feels like a divine appointment. Beautiful women, food, weather, music. But then, so did my long weekend in Calgary/Edmonton a few weeks ago. I feel like the Holy Spirit has revealed something to me through my wise friend Laura, and now I am walking through all of life with a new sense of purpose. With new eyes to see. Today I see his love in the green glint of the pool water, in the sharp edges of the cacti lining the scenery, in the dry colors of the desert.

Am I thinking about Shane? Of course I am thinking about Shane. I always think about Shane. I love that guy! I want to memorize the exact contours and details of his face and then burn them onto the backs of my retinas so that in these times, so far away from him, I need only close my eyes to see him.

Am I thinking about marrying him and what our own particular version of Happily-Ever-After-Save-Inevitable-Glitches will look like? Of course I’m thinking about it. But not because it’s Valentine’s! Please Lord strike me dead with a lightening bolt if my idea of love and romance becomes relegated to foil wrapped chocolates and red roses. No. I’m dreaming about this because I’m dreaming about love today. And all kinds of love.

And all kinds of love eventually point me back to their source. God. Who binds us in love to one another to help with the process of living life and surviving life. I don’t even know where to start except to say that God has rocked my understanding of him again. Just as I was getting confident I knew something of his nature, WHAM! Back to the beginning. Starting over. Picking up the pieces of my broken image, trying to figure out which fragments still fit.

Is he a God of love and grace? Heck yes he is. But is he a God of judgment and holiness? Hmmmm, unfortunately I think he might be. It’s been liberating to discover that God is actually pretty confident and wise so I don’t necessarily need to approve of all of his characteristics for them to be good and true. He is who he is. Like it, or, in some terribly misguided cases, leave it. The scary side of him, somehow, does not negate the good.

I think it’s interesting that in my new revelation of God and his character (brought on by some fiery sermons on Revelations!) I have also been given new eyes for Song of Songs and this picture of God as passionate lover.

Weird! How does this fit? The God of judgment and the God of passion. I don’t get it! But I know one thing, I suddenly feel more interested in a holy life. It’s been a weird shift from my trucker persona (ie. drinking, swearing, not giving a #$%^) to this feeling of wanting to be found blameless. Not to seem or appear differently, but to honor my Holy God.

In a very naïve comparison, it’s a similar motivation when I dress up for a date. Or when I make a beautiful supper. Or when I use my manners with someone’s Grandma. There is something about carefully considering the way I behave that can honor the people around me. Suddenly I’m less interested in testing what I can get away with (everything! God paid for it all!) and much more interested in how his power and love have transformed me into his righteousness. How because of his love, I have been made holy and blameless in his sight. Wow. Some love goggles! I am the righteousness of God?

No wonder my head won’t fit in this elegant hat.

Lala Gahle

“Lala gahle,” she told me.
Tears sprung to my eyes in the pitch black of her basement bedroom.
“Lala gahle,” I said, trying not to let my voice crack, wondering why the wish, sleep well, sounds so much more beautiful in SiSwati.

I decided on Wednesday to leave town. Thursday after work I was on my way. It was only somewhere between Saskatoon and Lloyd that I realized I had an itinerary of Hands at Work people to see. Kristal. Dayla. Laura. Lacey. Maybe Dave and Marilyn?

Suddenly I am wondering if my subconscious has ambushed me.

My heart is breaking in little ways today. There is something under all of this that I cannot discern. What am I looking for? And what exactly is it that I am worried I won’t find?

Kristal welcomed me like a proper African: into her home and life exactly as it lay before my arrival. She assumed, rightly, that I would rather sleep in her bed than on the couch. It was right to share her bed last night. It made think of Danny sleeping with a man his own age named Decorate. And I giggled. Then the thought to Shane sleeping beside a man, a pastor, named Blessings. Yes, the Africans have a different way of welcoming. All the way to the bedroom, under the sheets.

I’m missing that proximity of community. I’m missing people in my bed.

I’m asking tough questions, questions everyone asks like: What the H am I doing with my life? Where the H am I supposed to be? Why are there so many “good” ideas and no real certainty?

The highway between Lloyd and Edmonton is beautiful today. The sun rose behind me like a bright, pink kiss and the snow reflected her love with sparkling enthusiasm. I am on a strange adventure. Here. Tomorrow. Life. Forever. Who knows where this path goes?

oops...

Dreams float around like butterflies on this warm, winter day. Feels like Spring. Feels like Hope.

My web browser is open to a Google search for au pair positions in France.
My latte is steaming over the brim of my coffee cup.
My imagination is darting between Europe and Africa; solo adventure and romance; today, tomorrow and yesterday.

I’m not sure what happened today.

Well, number one, Carissa finally came home. She has a way of stirring me up. She draws something out of me that I never knew was there. She’s like a clown that keeps pulling scarves out of her sleeve. Bunnies from under hats. (But her hair is better, and her feet are tiny). Only it’s mysteries from my soul that keep surfacing in our little, innocent chats.

The point is, I thought I was going to Africa with Shane. That was my plan until breakfast this morning. Somewhere between the coffee and the eggs a new dream crept in. A new vision of life with my guitar and my notebook and the magic of Paris. Somehow independence and adventure took hold of that part of me that refuses to go down quietly into the status quo.

I know. How do you go from Zambia to France? How do I get from mud hut to corner café? I don’t know. I know. I don’t know.

But what if this is the moment? What if marriage and babies are right around the corner? What if this is my last chance to follow my own dream on an adventure with my own self for company?

Do I even want to admit this to the rest of you?

Post. Don’t post.

Post.

meaningless

The demure sky held a party this morning. He stood silently behind the festivity: cotton candy clouds exploded like slow motion fireworks around a tangerine sun. The giant orange in the sky stood proudly at the center of the carnival of colour. Winter has been ruling with a tyranny of oppression, dark, low stratus drizzling rain and frigid cold. Until this morning when life burst through the frozen layer of death to make a statement.

It was lost on me.

Everything is meaningless.

I can’t help but feeling like rolling my eyes at Solomon when he says it.
I’m not sure how he managed to earn "wisest man" award for that one.
But sometimes I can't help thinking he's on to something.
At least it feels like it.

Just a chasing after the wind.

It’s not like I’ve forgotten.

Less than a year later and that wound still surges and festers below a thin covering of flesh. I cannot forget its there. I don’t want to. Somehow the wound feels like the only real connection to the man. But how can that be true? The man did not remind me of a wound. The man was not a throbbing pain in my heart.

Christmas came and went without a single tear. I’m not sure how that was possible. My only explanation is the absurdity of the holiday: a brightly lit, finely decorated harlot selling gluttony and guilt. We bought it from this two-bit hooker and then wondered why the days after feel like hangover instead of holiday glow. We’ve been duped.

Fortunately, unfortunately, the distraction offered me respite from the tiring work of grieving. I suppose you cannot escape that fat bastard Grief. He struts in whenever the door’s left unlocked, cracks a beer from the fridge, spreads out on the living room sofa and refuses to leave until he’s had his way with you. Now that the company’s gone and the parties are over, I discover him among the discarded gift-wrap and food debris, waiting for me.

I sit down on the couch beside him and pat his leg. I’ve almost missed him. Ever since Joy showed up in her big summer hat, Giref has kept his distance. She’s using the spare room and I suppose he felt like too much of a slob in his sweats on the couch. But he’s back, and Joy is still fast asleep in the other room. We stare silently out the big bay window which is obscured by the unlit Christmas tree. Our breath mimics the fat, white flakes as they hypnotically, silently, slip through the air. There’s really nothing to say.

Today is my dad’s 56th birthday. Or I suppose would have been, were he still alive. This is still the 56th anniversary of his birth. He just isn’t here to celebrate it with us. Surprisingly, unsurprisingly, I’m not really in the party spirit. I shouldn’t have been surprised to find Grief on my couch this morning. It just might have been nice if he’d brought a fruit basket or something.

awake

The sky hangs dark and somber this morning. Winter is slowly wrapping white, frosty fingers around windshields and windows. Cold pushes its way under door frames and nibbles on exposed fingers and toes. The morning yawns and slowly stretches into day.

I sit here with uneasiness and expectancy. Like the morning, I have only just woken from a long sleep and looking lazily around, I see unfamiliarity with every new surge of the sun's light. Things have changed while I've been sleeping. Things I thought were alive and vibrant have fallen victim to the heaviness of winter and death.

I don’t know how I so easily become the walking dead: moving, talking, walking, doing. I’m not sure when the flames of passion for justice and Christ got flooded in the waters of my laziness. Whatever the reason for my acquiescence to the lullaby of indifference, I woke up.

Hallelujah, I woke up.

I saw George again last weekend. I don’t know what it is about the way his heart beats audibly through his chest, but whenever I hear it, I am caught up in the beat. It isn’t George. It isn’t even Africa. It’s the sound of Jesus calling out for justice. How do I so easily forget this call? Why do I so quickly dance to another drummer’s beat? This past weekend I was awakened to the heartbeat again, drawn into the beauty of a coming Kingdom. I was flooded with excitement for Africa.

It’s the first week of Advent and somehow that means something to me this year. I am sitting in expectancy of the coming Christ. He’s going to meet me here, where I am, still rubbing sleep out of my eyes. He’s going to step into this space I occupy and breathe his hope into the fractured pieces of my dreams. He loves me. He loves me and I’m going back to Africa. He loves me and he wants to give me something new. He loves me even though I so easily fall asleep.

The Problem is the Parking Stall

This morning I am living out another fantasy that I wasn’t sure existed until the moment when it happened.

I am typing lazily into my computer. I like the clicking of the keys over the chatter of the ladies beside me, the cooing of their babies and the hum of the espresso machine. There is a rhythm here and we are all playing along, swaying to the beat, contributing. Outside the day is offering a warmth I didn’t think possible at this juncture in time. The snow has melted and the leaves are resuming their place on center stage – flying like emancipated birds through the sweet fall air. People wait at stop lights. Cars drive by. Ah.

Peeking above my computer screen, I can’t help smiling at Shane. He is muttering out loud as he struggles with the morning crossword. Occasionally the little girl beside us stomps up and down on her pretty purple Mary Janes hoping they will light up, and our eyes meet to share a giggle. This is the rhythm of the morning. This is the fantasy. Is this my life?

Sunday we went to look at a beautiful condo downtown for curiosity’s sake. For a mere $500,000 we could have owned it. Not that we’re house shopping. I felt for a moment though like we were playing house. It was somewhere between the math of the mortgage payment and the realtor advising us the parking stall was an additional $15,000 that I woke up. My car is worth less than the stall to park it in!

Suddenly the absurdity of this tiny place having the capacity to bankrupt me sunk in. People do this! People buy houses they cannot afford with $15,000 parking stalls! I was embarrassed to discover that my monthly salary would not be sufficient to meet the outrageous mortgage payments on the condo. And that’s before property taxes and condo fees. Not to mention the upgraded car in order to feel worthy of the stall in which to park, flanked by Cadillacs and Hummers.

Add to that the expense of new furniture (pay now or later!) worthy of the expensive hardwood on which it will rest, under chandeliers and the twinkling lights of the downtown streets. Before long I’m wondering what kind of wardrobe a person would need in order to leave a building like that? And what dishware to serve food to guests who visit? Could you really buy NoName hand soap for the bathroom with granite countertops?!

Exhaustion settles quickly into the place where the initial attraction to such luxury first grew. I’m too tired to pretend to be rich. I’m too tired for a mortgage. I’d have to work more. When could I play my guitar?

I look up again from my furious typing and wonder what kind of a life I envision for myself. Coffee. Crosswords. Perhaps a new pair of light-up shoes. Or just enough kids around to enjoy theirs.

Pretty much I’m already living my fantasy life. I just need to remember to notice it.

On Life and Living It

Anything one does feels more indulgent and sophisticated with a glass of champagne in hand. I know because I am trying it right now. The whole of my anxious and unsettled being is quelled by this sensation of expectancy and pleasure.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

He knew I'd find champagne. And Havarti with jalapenos. And garden tomatoes.

The day did not begin here. It was more panicked. I woke up with a start.

Shane's parents are coming over for dinner and I am immersed in this culture that tells me it's important to: have a clean house, have flooring on your stairs, have only one colour on your wall in the kitchen, not kill people with salmonella poisoning. So I felt nervous. I live in a persistent construction zone in which no construction is happening. I also don't regularly dust. I don't ever dust. Oh priorities.

Today, however, I chose life.

First of all, I threw the flowers that had withered and died into the garbage. Leaves, stems, browned petals, vase and all. They had been sitting on the piano since my dad's funeral. They had been there so long reminding me of the horrific day I said goodbye to my dad, that I almost had a perverse and sentimental attachment to them.

I apologized to my dad. And then I also removed his plaques and awards from the piano where they have been collecting dirty Kleenexes and grief all this time. My dad seemed relieved. I wiped his photo with my sweater and we smiled at each other.

Today, he wanted me to live my life too. I could just tell.

It only got better from there. Around ten, my beautiful friend Kim showed up with huge canvases. We painted in my living room, nibbling fancy cheese and sipping champagne. The beauty was not only in the reality of our morning ritual, but in the fact that it was actually morning. There is something terribly luxurious about discovering that you can adore the life you're living with such minimal adjustments.

This afternoon, with my last glass of champagne still swirling around in my martini glass (I use this glass because I like the feel of the bubbles on my nose) I am ready to finish making dinner. I might even clean the floors. Don't hold me to that if I decide instead to write a song or do a crossword. Either way, if the point is living, today I choose it.

False Start

I'm nervous to write here.
I'm anxious that anything I say from my cozy kitchen (jazz music humming behind me, coffee steaming beside me) will sound like horse shit beside all the stories from "Africa". (I have no explanation for those quotation marks. I just really wanted to use them. They just embody my conflict.)

A number of things seems less noble or noteworthy now that I am home, the least of which, I swear like a trucker.

I feel like once I start writing again I will just start rambling about nonsense and drivel thereby making this safe place, this honest place, a lame tabloid.

Oh yeah, and I'm in love.

I feel as though this new reality of my state of being has forced me to surrender my sarcastic and critical tone. I fear it makes me less interesting. I've got stars in my eyes where once there was discernment; I have a vague, dreamy look in lieu of purpose. Not that this is bad. I'm in love for crying out loud, not leprous! I'm just not really sure what to do with it.

I'm not sure where to start with an update, or if anyone is even interested in that. Is there anyone even? What a strange idea to project ones very heart and mind into the anonymity of cyber space and hope that strangers will take care not to damage or abuse you when you're vulnerable and bear.

What is God teaching me? That he is good.

Presently I am in the throes of negotiating a return trip.
There's something disturbingly cyclical about the time frame. I should be back right around the same time I left last year. It's funny but it's comforting to know that nearly a year separates me from the moment of impact that broke my heart. I'm eager to get back to the heat and the mystery to figure out what I've learned, how I've grown, and what's changed.

Mostly, I am eager to live out a story that matters, to have a life that is in fact life and not awaiting death. I want to live in a place of expectancy and hope. I want to be part of something that matters, the Kingdom of God really. I just hope this path is leading there.

So, I've been sleeping a lot.
10 hours a night usually. Unless I can sleep in. Then more.

I've been cracking the spines of new books; smelling the delicious scent of fresh ideas; drinking in the wisdom of fine thinkers, philosophers and poets.

I've been writing music which basically amounts to a pitiful culmination of weak melodies and cliche lyrics that I sing at top volume with my impotent accomplice, my guitar.

Occasionally I wail on my djambe.

Often I sit in the morning sun by the big bay window overlooking the cul-de-sac and meditate, or nap, or dream.

Almost daily I am meeting with and talking to people who love Jesus and see him waving Hope and a Future in their faces.

Often, I cry: sometimes with, usually without, reasonable explanation. At the insurance company. In my car. While playing the piano. When I read something beautiful.

Most days I avoid mounds of paperwork and pending phone conversations. I spend hours psyching myself up or out and then give up and bake cakes.

And all of this, all of this amounts to one thing: waiting. I am waiting.
I wish I could say I was waiting patiently on the Lord. I wish I could say I was being brave and courageous. Mostly I am just waiting. Actually, always, except for moments when I forget, I am waiting.

But today, I feel like enough is enough.

Injustice hounds me like a ravenous beast, devouring bits of hope and leaving a wake of despair. I see too much that is too much and I want to DO something already.

Today I hear that heartbeat again.

I heard it in the desperate plea for partners and people of compassion to unify to build transitional housing for addicts and their children. It was less than an hour later that I ran into a social worker who informed me that one of my girls is an addict herself, at the tender age of 13. After lunch, to pick up the tone, I went to a funeral for a man whose story and situation so closely echoed my dad's I felt like I was living an out-of-body experience. And for desert, la piece de resistance, I listened to a representative of International Justice Mission telling me about the millions, yes millions!, of children living and working in the sex trade.

How long, o lord, will you stand so far off?
Or, how long will you allow me to stand so far off?

Waiting.
Waiting.
Tiring of waiting.
Still waiting.

Tha-thump.
It drums on.