Friday Morning I am...

I am...

• constantly amazed at how the oddest things can evoke memories. Scents. Noises. A texture. Any one of those things can throw me immediately back in time, and it always catches me off guard.
• having trouble regulating body heat this week. Practically, this means that I take my magic bags to work with me, and reheat them through the day, keeping myself warm.
• sipping a cup of passion tea.
• glad I made the drive in without anything on the stereo this morning. Just quiet, and a little bit of me praying out loud.
• looking forward to watching last night's episodes of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice on the internet this weekend.
• wearing a very cute pink with red polka dots thermal top that I bought last weekend. I saw it in the store several months ago, when I bought the same top in black and white, and wanted it, but didn't want to buy two. It was on sale for $7 last weekend when I was back in that shop, and I immediately purchased it.
• generally not a fan of pink, but something about this top called my name. And it is quite cosy, which is great for a week where I can't seem to properly heat my body.
• looking forward to a quiet long weekend. A wedding dress fitting with my roommate on Monday, and a family birthday party Monday night, but generally just me and lots of quiet time to rest and read and write and think.
• re-reading Anne Lamott's "Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith" and remembering all over again why I fell in love with her writing, and feeling grateful that there are other slightly neurotic and willing to admit it lovers of Jesus out there. Especially ones that write with that sort of humor and grace. Even when I don't agree with all of their politics!
• glad that I live someplace where clean water is readily availalble. I love water.
• glad for a heart that is somewhat more at rest right now.
• learning much about joy, and how closely connected joy and sorrow or suffering really are.
• waiting for the right words to flow to describe some of the deep things the Lord has been speaking to my heart about his promise to shield me.
• continually amazed by how much it helps my mood just to be able to wear jeans to work on Friday's.
• going to do some work tasks I actually really enjoy today.
• going to enjoy my usual Friday evening free of roommates in our house tonight - I love the quiet!
• looking forward to lunch with a co-worker today, and loving the fact that she's buying as an apology for a very funny joke she played on me earlier this week.
• looking at a calendar and realizing that it's Friday the Thirteenth, and remembering the hilarious stories my best friend used to tell about working in the hospital as a nurse on a full moon or a Friday the thirteenth.
• missing my best friend when I remember those sorts of stories, and going to send her an "I'm thinking about you" email, since she's on the other side of the planet at the moment.
• off to start the day.

Fire again...

Seems an odd way to protest, but catching my attention nonetheless.

Man Sets Himself Ablaze in Downtown Calgary

In the bookshop and other thoughts

I've been thinking all day about how it's important to me to stop in here once a day or so, and put something up, even if it's just news headlines that are catching my attention and stirring my heart to pray.

Truth is, I don't have a lot of collected and coherent thoughts today.

There are some deep thoughts and writing bits brewing, but other than those, for the first time in a couple weeks, my heart feels kind of quiet.

A dream I had earlier this week is still with me. But I feel like that's getting closer to being processed, or at least to the point where it is not fully present and affecting my days.

I'm thinking about the delightful conversation I had with the little older lady working in the Catholic book shop last night. She was so excited by the title I was looking for, delighted that someone as "young as me" would be interested in reading a work by a mystic from another continent and several centuries past. (I didn't have the heart to tell her that I'm not quite so young as she seemed to assume, though I am certainly younger than her.) She had read and purchased many of the titles in the shop, and since I was the only one in there, I took advantage of the opportunity to chat, and asked her to point out her recommendations. I walked with her through several aisles, making mental notes for next time, and did end up purchasing about $75 worth of new reading material as well.

Bumping into her was providential. I'm not sure of her name, though I introduced myself to her as I was leaving and another customer came in. I hope I run into her there again. She had a sweet and beautiful spirit about her, a passion for Jesus that my own spirit recognized. I pray that I will be that in love with the Lord, and with the church and with the words of others who love the Lord and the church when I am her age, and that my own spirit will glow the way hers did.

And now, semi-reclined and curled up in bed, lounging against the myriad of pillows I feel are essential for a comfortable space and sleep, I'm going to stop writing here, pick up a journal, and do some writing that needs to be accomplished. And then, then I'm going to spend a bit of time with one of the books I purchased yesterday before I attempt to sleep.

5 Questions

Hope recently had this fun meme on her blog (see her questions and answers here) and invited anyone who was interested to contact her for questions and play along. I decided to jump in on the fun, and she sent me the following five questions. If you'd like to play along, leave me a comment or drop me an email, and I'll come up with five questions for you.

1. How has your relationship with God changed over the course of your blogging?

Well, I started blogging in 2005, and I was in the midst of transitioning from attending the church I grew up in as a pastor's kid, to a church that was somewhat less conservative, and was charismatic in bent. I'd never heard really dreamed that the Holy Spirit could play any more active role in my life than being the voice of my conscience, and was curious and horrified and strangely drawn. Somehow the people I met in that church had something that I didn't, and that I wanted. They knew God, instead of just talking about him.

2005 was also the last year that I suffered from severe depression before being healed, and the 7 years I struggled with depression, and the three and a bit years since the healing have profoundly shaped my life and experience of God.

My relationship with God over the years I've been blogging has changed. There's no question about it, though it's hard to put words around. It has become less about what I know, and more about what I experience and feel and see. And about finding a balance between knowledge and experience that works for me.

2. What would your dream job look like?

My dream job would involve some combination of reading, traveling, praying, and writing. If it also included extended periods of time sharing cups of tea with dear friends of the old or new variety, that would be fantastic. If anyone can figure out what job fits that description, and how I can get it, you should definitely let me know. (Though I suspect at least a few of those who read my blog would give me fairly stiff competition for just such a job.)

In the meantime, a job where I'm interacting with and helping people, and have the chance to do things I enjoy and where I can be challenged rather than bored will absolutely suit me.

3. I see you love to drink tea! What is your favourite kind?

Well, see, that depends. I don't like black tea. Which is what most of the world seems to drink. I can tell you the exact number of times (5) and places (England, Malta, Canmore, Newfoundland, and a friend's home) that I've had black tea in the last year.

I love looseleaf teas, and own several varieties, mostly rooibos (or red bush) teas. I have mango rooibos, vanilla rooibos, provence rooibos and several others. I also have a few herbal teas (like lavender honeybush) and one fantastic loose fruit tea (lemon mango).

I've also been known to have the occasional cup of green tea - I have a pomegranate green tea that's pretty fantastic.

However, my most commonly drunk cup of tea is probably Tazo Passion Tea from Starbucks. I start most workdays with a cup of it (I buy the tea bags and make my own instead of buying one every day - way more affordable.) It's also become a sort of unspoken prayer of mine to sip that tea from Starbucks, and I'll often pick up a cup from the shop when I'm needing to spend some time talking with Jesus, or when I'm praying for certain people and things.

4. Your recent post "Crying Out For Restoration" was beautiful. In it you mentioned several objects that held significance for you. If you had to pick just one, what would it be and why?

I thought a lot about how to answer this. I'm definitely a collector, and it would be hard to pick just one item.

To be honest, I think I'd probably keep "Nelly". Nelly is a teddy bear that was given to me at birth, and we've been through a lot together. She gives great hugs, has traveled the country and the world with me, and is a source of many memories and has been greatly loved.

If I was picking something of more spiritual significance, I'd probably choose either a coin that sits on the frame of my mirror which is a memento from a very personal and deep moment of encounter with God, or a little plaque that sits in my window sill, has a tiny shield hanging from it, and reads "The Lord is my shield in whom I take refuge." The plaque was a gift from a very dear friend, and speaks to me of a number of things. The shield on it bears a Maltese cross, and reminds me of many things encountered this last year. The fact that it is a gift from my friend reminds me of the deep love we share, and the many hard and deep and beautiful places we have walked together. And the scripture verse is a reminder of a promise that I believe God spoke to me over my life at one point, a line he said first to Abraham, "Do not be afraid, I am your shield and your very great reward." This is a central promise in my life, and has given birth to an image (still being developed) that I eventually would like to have tattooed on my back. There's something powerful for me in the image of having God's promise to shield and protect me permanently inked on my back.

5. When you think of your parents' generation is there any one thing that comes to mind that you wish you could say to them when it comes to living out their Christianity? Anything that they are holding on to that is unnecessary?

I wish sometimes that I could ask them to make Christianity about more than doing the right things. More than being in church each week, and a small group bible study, and doing some sort of community service and outreach or evangelism. I think all of those things are important, I just think that sometimes Jesus gets lost in them.

I met Jesus first when I was four years old, kneeling on the carpet in my parent's living room, and praying with my mom. I'll be 26 this coming summer, and I'm only just beginning to believe that Jesus actually loves me for who I am, not because I do and say and know the right things about him.

I think there are a thousand and one things my parents and their generation did right. They are very devoted to the concept of gathering together to celebrate God and worship him. My generation is by and large rejecting church. But I also think that there comes a moment when church can be adapted a bit to fit the changes in culture and thought and attention span. That it can become a bit less of an institution and a bit more of the family and body of Christ.

I'm a historian by training (with a specialty in church history), and I have a deep love for the church, and even the idea of the church as an institution that many of my peers seem to lack. In fact, I find myself increasingly drawn to the deep liturgy and ancient tradition of the Catholic church. But I also long for church to be a place where I go to meet with family - however wild and crazy and dysfunctional - people whom Jesus has called and collected. The Psalms talk about God setting the lonely in families, and in a culture that can be so isolating and individualistic, I see a great opportunity for the church to be the body of Christ, to form deep and loving extended families who also love and long to live out a life radically changed by an encounter with a living savior who understands the pain of the human existence, and knows suffering more deeply than any of us ever will.

~~~

Those were fantastic questions, Hope! thanks for sending them my way.

If anyone else wants to play along, let me know!

Redeem

The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
The time. Redeem...


(from "Ash Wednesday" by T.S. Eliot)