Done, I think.

I just finished reading my 41st book of the year. Titled "Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year," by Anne Lamott, it was 251 pages of pure, raw emotion. Lamott is 35 and single when she has a baby boy. The book is a record of her journey with Sam (her son) through his first year. As a former addict to both drugs and alcohol, and also a firm believer in God, she comes at life in a rather unconventional way. Her fear and pain bleed through the pages as she talks about her best friend getting cancer (she passes away a couple of months after Sam's 3rd birthday), about losing her dad to brain cancer many years earlier, and about how she longs for Sam to have a dad.
Interspersed with the fear, and the pain, and the worry, are the hilarious moments, and the incredibly precious moments. Lamott revels in her son's every new development - waving goodbye, learning to crawl, the first time he ate a plum, dancing, babbling from the carseat. There is a sense of urgency about her life, as she feels everything so deeply and experiences such great highs and lows in one year.
Definitely one of my favorite books of the last 12 months.

Advertising

I heard a commercial on the radio today:

"Self-indulgence is not a luxury, it's a necessity."

Makes me want to boycott radio and tv just to avoid all the "me-first, I-deserve-the-best-of-everything" advertising.

Self-indulgence has become a god in our culture these days. How often do you hear "indulge yourself" in one form or another throughout the day...be it expensive cars, a cottage at the lake, a day at the spa, a new flat panel LCD tv...or even something as simple as chocolate.

And I think all of these things are well and good, but slowly the message has become you deserve, no, you need these things. That's what I take issue with; not the thing itself, but the pressure to have it all.

Blessed

I am blessed.
I am blessed for so many reasons, but particularly at this time of year I am blessed because Christmas is a happy time for me.
I am blessed to have family close by with whom I will get together on Christmas day and eat, laugh, open presents, and share life with.
I am blessed by friends with whom I will also get together and eat, laugh, open presents and share life with.
I am blessed with great co-workers, and a job where I get a Christmas bonus. A job where we can get together and have a fantastic food day (such as today!); where people are easy-going this time of year and work just doesn't really seem like work for a little while.
I am blessed to go to an awesome church, where we will gather tomorrow night and celebrate God sending His Son to earth, and all the myriad things that means for us.
I am blessed.

Thankful

I feel thankful for so much...
my friends
my family
my job and my co-workers
my home (with the Christmas tree I put up tonight)
money to buy Christmas presents (I've enjoyed shopping a lot this year - how wonderful to have a time of year to celebrate the people in our lives)
my reliable car
my cat who makes me smile and keeps me company
my computer that allows me to keep in touch with friends
the thick frost that covered the trees on my way to church Sunday morning, along with the sundog in the sky (first time I'd ever seen one!)
and so much more...
Thank you God!

I love my cat

I love my cat.
Just thought I'd share that.
She came upstairs to find me, and is currently sitting on my lap, purring so loudly, her head resting between my hands as I type.
sigh....she likes me...she really likes me!

panicky

I can't believe it's already December 7. I know people are always talking about how fast time goes, but I think this is especially true in December. Every year I say I'm going to get all my shopping done early and take the whole month of December to celebrate the season, but here it is, already Dec 7 and my tree still isn't up. I don't have any lights or decorations put out yet, but am determined to get them up sometime between now and the end of Sunday. I have a few presents yet to buy, all of them to wrap, chocolates and cards to make and mail, and oh how I feel stress and panic trying to worm their way into my life.
So here's what I'm going to do. I am going to celebrate Christmas, every day for the next 18 or so days....in one way or another. Tonight I am going to read the Christmas story for the first (but probably not the last) time this month.
Merry Christmas.

Sandi Thom

I discovered a great new artist the other day on the Galaxy music channel - Sandi Thom. I heard her song "I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker" and checked her out on iTunes. I bought the CD today and loved it the very first listen-through.
Awesome.

Driving Lessons

I almost ran myself over with my own car today. True Story.
I parked by the mailboxes, unclicked the part of my keychain that holds my mail key, got out and collected my mail.
Here's where it gets a little dicey.
As I was rounding the front of my car it started driving towards me. That's right. Towards me and also heading towards the huge metal garbage cans. Not even rolling. Driving. I opened the door and jumped in, jamming my foot on the brake, quite heroically I thought. (Although perhaps straining a groin muscle in the process.) Looking down, I realized that I had left the car in drive.
Yes...in drive.
Did I mention it took me three tries to get my driver's license?

It's all in the Adjectives

I was at Nutter's today buying chocolate melts for Nicole and me - it must be Christmas! Because it certainly is Winter. The ruts in the parking lot were, I'm sure, Olympic quality moguls. No kidding.

While at Nutter's I picked up some Real Brew Draft Root Beer, and boy was it good! I used to collect bottles of all sorts (which are now in storage at my parents' house) and I admit I was drawn to this particular beverage because of the description on the bottle:
" A complex flavour of sweet birch, licorice root, sarsaparilla, cinnamon, clove, anise, and wintergreen"
"A draft root beer unlike any other. To give our root beer a subtly rich, creamy flavour, we add pure bourbon vanilla to our recipe"
How could I not pick up a bottle?

I've recently discovered CBC Radio 3 (independent Canadian artists) on the internet, and one of the new songs I heard has been playing in my head ever since. It's by a group called Two Hours Traffic, and the song is "Better Sorry than Safe." It's got me thinking about risk taking, and how sometimes its better to take a chance and have it not work out than to be safe and never risk anything.

If You Are Wise

I was cleaning out my closet tonight when I found a poem I'd long forgotten, by William Arthur Ward. It's quite long so I won't reprint the whole thing, but it's called "If You Are Wise" and there are so many lines that challenge me. The three main themes are

If you are wise...
you will forget yourself into greatness
you will empty yourself into adventure
you will lose yourself into immortality.

Under each of these, the admonition to

Forget your inconveniences, but remember your blessings.
Empty your days of the search for security; fill them with a passion for service.
Lose your cynicism. Lose your doubts. Lose your fears. Lose your anxiety. Lose your unbelief.

Angels Unaware

I went for a walk tonight. It was beautiful out in a winter sort of way. During the last stretch of my walk I happened upon a vast expanse of unbroken snow with a slight crust on top, along the side of a small hill. "Perfect," I thought to myself. Perfect for making a snow angel. After looking around to make sure I had no spectators, I launched myself backwards into the snow and spread my arms. There is something wonderfully pure about playing in the snow, and I thought of my friend Kyla, who would surely approve of snow angels at night.
I lay there for a minute, then slowly got up and admired my handiwork. "It does look a bit like an angel," I thought, and smiled the rest of the way home.

Riding the Bus

For various reasons, I had to take the bus home after work today. Well, I shouldn't say I "had" to, it was more like I "got" to. With my fare money clutched tightly in my mittened hand, I felt like a child again. I noticed the late afternoon sun lighting up the taller buildings, felt the cold wind whip my hair around, felt alive for some reason I can't explain.
The bus driver was friendly, giving us updates on the time and weather over the speakers.
There were 2 ladies with mental disabilities riding near the front who were hilarious. In fact, I think they were the happiest people on the bus. When another bus passed us and the white-haired, smiling driver waved enthusiastically to these 2 ladies, they roared with laughter. They remind me of the lady in the book I'm reading right now entitled "Riding the Bus With My Sister." It's about a woman with cognitive disabilities who has chosen to spend her days riding the city buses where she lives, and for one year her sister decides to join her. Many are the stories of friendly bus drivers and the impact they have on people's lives. Maybe that's why today's ride home was so special - I was riding with an awareness of others and attempting to "tune in" to the bus culture.
Also, I felt connected in a way that just isn't possible sitting alone in traffic in my car.

Music Ministry

I just bought a new CD off of iTunes - The Crane Wife by The Decemberists.
I slipped on my headphones minutes ago and started listening and blogging.
It is music I can lose myself in. Such talent and creativity...
Praise be to God for giving us the gift of music.

Engage the Senses

I want to feel
the wind blowing my hair around
the melted snow running down my forehead
my nose getting red in the cold
the crisp air kissing my cheeks.

I want to indulge in Winter
to fight with it
and make it give something back to me.

I want to bundle up against the cold
go for a walk
and return hot and cold at the same time
refreshed and triumphant .

Light

This morning on my way to work I was just cresting a small hill (I live in Saskatchewan - all we have are small hills) when the clouds parted and the sun shone through with brilliance. The light was this perfect golden/pink morning light, and it made everything beautiful, including all the construction going on. It was like the curtains parted and the light bathed everything in goodness and beauty. For a few seconds I saw things in a different light.
When I got downtown, the bare trees and grey river seemed all the more bleak after my moment of golden light, and I thought about the difference light can make. A construction site - dirty and raw, made beautiful; A riverbank of trees flanking a grand river - dull and dreary.
Then I thought about the difference Light can make in our lives, transforming us from ordinary, worried, wearied, and worn-out people into people of radiant beauty.
And I wonder about the difference Light could make in our city. I wonder about how it could transform individuals, families, neighborhoods.
Every day when I read the paper, when I read about break-ins, stabbings, poverty, and vandalism I wonder what would happen if God's love flooded this city. I wonder what's possible. If God can do more than anything I could ask or imagine...well I can imagine a lot.
And God can do more than that?

Jungle Berries

You've Got Mail

I was looking on the USPS website to try and find out what kind of things can be sent throught the mail, when I discovered something interesting. Apparently you can mail animals, as long as they are not "injurious to human beings, agriculture, horticulture, forestry, wildlife, or the wildlife resources of the United States."

Huh. Mailing animals. Who would've thought.

The Running Around

The Amish are the modern-day Pharisees.

Hmmm...that seems like a judgmental statement doesn't it? Just the word "pharisee" conjures up a picture of hypocritical, self-righteous, excessively pious people; people who love to follow the rules by the letter but totally miss the heart of them.

I may be wrong in my comparison, and I realize it's a bit of a blanket statement that obviously wouldn't apply to all Amish, but I'm reading the book "Rumspringa" by Tom Shachtman and the similarities seemed to jump off the pages.

For instance:

"The unwritten list of them [rules], the ordnung, covers everything from the number of pins that an Amish woman may use to hold together her dress to the directive to defer to men's judgment in all-important matters to what constitutes improper fraternizing with the opposite sex."

They legislate the number of pins used to hold together a dress?!? How can this possibly be important? It seems so similar to all the rules the Pharisees made up, in addition to the moral laws given by God.

One girl remarked that her parents seemed more upset about her wearing jeans than about her going to parties.

Their practice of "Rumspringa" is also very interesting to me. This begins when a person turns 16 and lasts until they decide to be baptized and join the church. Technically the period is "to give youngsters leave and ways to find an appropriate mate. The community's expectation is that, upon completion of the courtship task, a young Amish couple will end their Rumspringa by agreeing to marry and concurrently making the commitment to be baptized."
That's technically what it's for, but many young Amish take the opportunity party wildly, getting drunk, smoking, doing drugs, etc. They go out on Friday, usually with English friends, and do not return home until Sunday night. It seems the attitude among many of the adults is that young people need to "get it all out of their system" before they can settle down to the traditional Amish life. Technically, because they haven't been baptized, they are not subject to the rules yet, and so this is all ok.
The letter of the law not the heart - go be wild because you haven't been baptized yet, but tomorrow when you are baptized, those things will be wrong.
Of course, not all young Amish behave this way - a lot simply go out with friends and enjoy some time away from their parents, having fun but not seeing the need to engage in rebellious behavior.
So, I don't know, maybe for some of them they need to try everything before they can make the decision to join the church. I understand that they want their youth to come to the church of their own free will, but perhaps the choice would not be so difficult if their rules were not so stringent.
I guess they are probably just trying to keep the world out of their lives, and maybe having a list of rules makes it easier for them. Keeping things black and white, allowing no "grey" areas, makes it easier to see if you're on the right path - you can check off the do's and don'ts and see how you're doing. There are no difficult decisions to make because the Order has already established a rule for just about every behavior.
I imagine the more I read the more I will learn about the "why" behind their way of life and there will be good things to it as well.

Jazz Pictures

"Often the photos were scratchy, the only copy of an image fixed near the
beginning of the twentieth century - but they contained such power. Today, of
course, images are reproduced digitally ad infinitum, and we are drowning in
them; they have in many ways lost their value...But these older images were
powerful and unique, often showing fold marks or tears; they had been smuggled
out of the past as if containing an important message that the past wanted us to
know. Whoever had held onto them had wanted them to endure. "

- "Why New Orleans is Important" The author is referring to old black and while photos of jazz musicians in the city.

This is what I desire in my photography. I want my pictures to be powerful and unique. I want them to mean something, somehow, 20 or 50 years from now. Together they tell a story of what I see, and how I see.

Falling Meditation

I had a wonderful lunch hour last week. It was, I think, the last really warm day of Fall and I spent it in Kiwanis park down by the river. I sat in the sun and read until I got too warm (imagine!) and then moved to a bench under one of my favorite trees. The sun was hot, the sky clear, and the leaves were positively golden. The breeze was so slight, just enough to stir the leaves and send them on their way.

And so I sat, watching the leaves dance through the air, thankful for everything God has given me; content just to be.