of 38 bills

so bill C-38 has officially passed through parliament. in a short month, it will be officially endorsed by the senate, and Canada will be the 3rd country in the world to support homosexual marriages....hooray!! now maybe the church can move onto more important matters, such as reaching out, loving and guiding those struggling with their sexual orientation instead of condemning them all to hell. hoowee, do i sound cynical or what? sorry.

i tend to look at the positive in situations. in this situation, here is the positive that i see: the government has remained true to its terms that it will not force the church to perform homosexual marriages. awesome! the church should be celebrating that its government supports religious freedom in this country, not condemning the government for turning its back on the church (isn't there something called the separation of church and state in this country?). obviously, this could be taken to the extreme. i hope the government doesn't separate from the church to the extend that the 10 commandment law to not murder will be deemed 'too religious', and therefore should be banned from Canadian law (despite the fact that there are a number of 10 commandement laws that are not recognized in Canadian law). i think that Canadian churches have gotten to the point that, since their money is going to missionaries in foreign countries, they can sit back and relax and enjoy the fact that their money is being put to good work -- that they are 'evangelizing by donation'. unfortunately, that breeds comfort in our church community to the extent that the only way churches feel they can reach out to their neighbour is through politics, not through actually talking to their neighbour. more cynicism. sorry. but i wonder if this trend of our government freeing itself from the church will force the church to be uncomfortable in its own country to the extent that it is forced back to the basics of Christ's teaching that changed people's hearts, not anti-political scheming...something Christ never really got into.

long drives.

i came to a sad realization on the drive up to Vernon yesterday. the drive from Abbotsford to Vernon is about 4 hours (3:50, to be exact). A flight to Ontario is about the same amount of time. Cost difference? About $400. Krikee. I guess one advantage of sitting alone in a car for four hours is that one has time to reflect on such realities. and then write a poem:

An Ode to Jetsgo

Oh, Jetsgo,
Why did you have to ... go?
You had the best prices
And now we're in crisis
As prices have soared
Too much for the poor.
Oh Jetsgo,
Why did you have to go?

so here i am, driving along the coquihalla highway, passing by mountains and mountains and rivers and trees. lots of trees. you know how on drives like that, you kind of zone out and find yourself just driving but not really paying attention to what's going on around you? i found a cure for that. while in 'the zone', manicuring by teeth, i looked up. i don't know how i saw it ... come to think of it, i don't know how i missed it. standing on the shoulder of the highway was a rather large deer. i'm talking a foot from the solid white line that separates the driving lane from the shoulder. you know, the line that we humans are trained not to cross over unless we have our four-way blinkers on and / or are missing a tire. deer don't follow driving rules, and hence, this deer probably didn't understand why there was a white line beneath it's hooves. we had a moment, this deer and i. we literally looked in eachother's eyes. and while i'm quite thankful it ran the other way, i'm not sure why it did. was it because it realized it was no match for my super swift? or was it because i yelled 'Holy Shit!' so loud that my words frightened it off? at any rate, it kept me out of 'the zone' for the remainder of the trip. hello Vernon!

cool things

i'm worried. i know i shouldn't be, but i am. i'm worried because i am loving my job more and more, and i'm loving the youth more and more. i'm worried because, aside from my own unfounded (or confounded) inadequacies, i feel like the anvil is bound to drop sooner or later. i guess a part of it is that i'm still in the honeymoon stage, and the church is just loving the fact that they have a youth director. but more than that, God has been allowing the coolest things to happen right off the bat. i was talking to my sister about this a bit today. seriously, i am getting along well with the youth, and to me, that's the most important thing. if it weren't so, this job would tear me apart.

perhaps the pinnacle of 'coolest things to happen' would be a conversation i had today with an 18-year old youth. this guy is not a part of any church, but has decided that Christianity is the religion for him. as he says, 'it makes the most sense'. in his 'quest for Christianity', he went to a church program one night, through which i was put in contact with him. previous to today, i have had two conversations with him. today he told me he wants to get baptized. dunked. in a lake. he's got a lot of sin he wants washed off. how cool is that? i have to admit, i have had absolutely no part in his coming to this decision (i think God's been working on him for awhile), but i am quite excited that he chose me to be a part of if. see what i mean about God allowing the coolest things to happen? see why i'm scared of the anvil?

good week.

it's been a good week. probably the best in a long time. currently listening to the new coldplay album -- and lovin' it. watched star wars last night -- and loved it. depressing as it was, it gives me hope that there are still people out there who know how to release decent non-clichéd movies. guns. bombs. car chases. they're in the latest previews, and in all new movies it seems. that and comic book characters.

anyway, so most of this week has been spent with the pastor meeting with students who are doing public profession of their faith (in the christian reformed world, that's speak for saying 'I love God and will continue pursuing him in my life'). very cool. good to hear each one share where they're at and why they want to stand on a stage and annouce to a congregation of people that they love God. it's been a good chance to step out of my comfort zone, to nudge students to the edge of theirs and to get to know the pastor. it's been a good week.

kids.

I have this innate fear of raising children. Don't get me wrong, children are great...it's not that I don't like children. It's just that kids are fun to be around for a few hours before they need to go back to their owners. I babysat for the first time in eons yesterday. Two little rugrats that belong to my roommate's sister. Good kids, for the most part. It's funny though, I have noticed children's behaviours in various situations over the last couple days and it's given me an insight into what's wrong with the world today:

Tim Horton's, Saturday around 4:00pm. Whilst standing in line awaiting the coveted Tim Horton's coffee, a young East Indian laddie awaits along the window with his parent. Along comes a caucassian young laddie who stands beside first laddie and proceeds to tap the first laddie on the shoulder. First laddie turns his head to second laddie. Second laddie raises his hand, and waves to first laddie with a smile. Several minutes pass by, first laddie has moved onto the world of Tim Horton's feasting. Second laddie and I are still in line when along comes laddie number three. Laddie number three walks over to a chair that faces second laddie, sits down and waves at second laddie with a smile. A little coffee shop of innocent cheer , thought I. Timmy would be proud.

Church, Sunday around 12:00pm. About 30 young lads and lasses stand in choir formation at the front of the church, belting out various songs for our enjoyment (and entertainment). Far to the left is a young white girl with devolpmental disabilities. Next to her is a young asian girl. The final song calls for the choir to join hands and in one disjointed manouevre, raise and lower connected hands on cue. Little asian girl firmly grips the hand of the girl beside her and will not let her go. Discriminiation is not in the vocabulary of a four-year old.

A house in Abbotsford, Sunday around 5:30pm. Babysitting. Sitting on a couch watching a movie. I discover a little joy that most parents must appreciate. Five year old boy, who previously sacked me (four times), decides that he's had his fun and will sit gently beside me with my arm around him and (I think) enjoy the fact that someone genuinely cares for him. This moment lasts only a few short minutes before he's off on another quest to destroy my body, but it was kinda cool. I may not actually be able to have kids after this experience, but hey.

All in all, it was an interesting little foray into how life on earth should be. Maybe it's not so much our role as adults to teach kids, but to learn from them.

Contentment in hair loss

The bulk of this post is just a continuation of some personal thoughts I had while sitting along a rail line in Abbotsford concerning some circumstances in my life right now. Sometimes I think my best thinking happens when I'm alone beside a train track:

I have to learn to be content. That is one thing I have been called to. That doesn't necessarily mean I have to be (or am expected to be, or that I should always be) happy. The Christian faith doesn't automatically bring with it earthly happiness, I don't think. Paul encouraged Timothy to be content. What is contentment? I think contentment is just being able to, in all situations, understand and know that God has everything under control. One of the doctrinal statements of our church is that God is so in control of everything that not even a hair can fall fom our heads without the will of our Father in Heaven. In my human mind, that concept is incomprehensible. Does God really care about a single hair on my head? Biblically, He knows how many hairs are on my head, so I guess in a way he's keeping track. But does he will a receding hairline? I don't know.

What I do know is that He does work out all things for the good of those who put their trust in Him. Is that 'good' judged by human standards? Of course not. If it were, nobody would ever die, cancer would not exist, families would not break apart, relationships wouldn't end. No, the 'good' is based on God's wisdom. God knows what is good for His children a lot better than we think we do. And that's one of the best and worst aspects of the true Christian life. In all things, we are called to trust GOd's wisdom. Even through the crap, the loneliness, the loss...God calls us to trust. That's not an easy thing to do. Trusting in the unknown is not easy. But my limited understanding of God tells me that He understands. He understanes why we'd rather do it our own way. He understands why we would turn our backs on Him. He understands that His 'good' is not the same as ours, but He's gonna teach us that it is even better than the best 'good' we can aim for on our own strength. Our call, my call even now, is to trust that all things happen for a purpose. There's no chance, there's no coincidence. Mabye God wants some of us to be bald and so He actually is willing to let those hairs fall out of our head. I'm not going bald, by the way, it's just an analogy. I don't know.

Yeah, I wish things would work out the way I want them to. I wish my 'good' was good enough for God. I wish I could understand even now the purposes in the seemingly random and unfortunate events that take place in life. Then again, maybe life would be boring. If everything that I wanted in life, that I thought was good came into being, I think I'd be bored. And I would probably think that I don't need God because everything I want is provided. The joy in living a true Christian life, once realized, is that we aren't given everything we want. But God does provide for our needs, and for me, for the most part, that's good enough.

early morning thoughts

5:50 am. What in the heck am I doing up? Better yet, why the heck were there birds chirping outside my window at 5:00 this morning? Anyways, I'll be on my way up to Kelowna in about 10, so thought I'd fill my time with some writing. Funny how the brain doesn't function at this time in the morning. Current thoughts of late that have been preoccupying my mind: accountability (still); summer planning for youth; spiritual dryness; community; moving to New West for the summer; why I don't seem to care about certain things. Hmmm...ride's here, gotta go!

oh....accountability.

i dread that word. accountability. i dread the concept that comes with it. i dread being accountable to someone else and i sure as heck know i suck at holding someone else accountable. i met with a pastor from the local CRC out here at a little coffee shop called Ethical Addictions yesterday. As i waited for the 'guy with a cream-coloured pullover', i looked over at the corner of the coffee shop and saw a pastor of mine from my year at Lifeteams (www.lifeteams.ca). i admire this man simply because he always seemed like a down-to-earth, practical and understandable preacher. he always wants what's best for the church he pastors and it was always evident (haven't been there since returning to BC though...). anyway, he knew that i had just started a youth director position in a church and was eager to share some advice from his 15 years of youth work (that he started when he was 26...i'm about right on there. but he was married. way behind on that one). one thing he suggested to me was just to spend as much time as possible with the students in our church, just hanging out with them. what? i can do that? like, i know it's a part of my job and i've been doing that to some extent, but he was actually suggesting doing that more often and less focused on sitting in a coffee shop and chatting with them one-on-one. wow...i think i've got a sweet job! i still have to wrap my head around that one, but i'm looking forward to see where that goes...

okay, back to the accountability thing. pastor Ray stressed to me the importance of having someone outside of the realm of the church whom i can go to with a mind full of stuff to unload...a sounding board if you will. someone who is not connected to the church so that i can bring my real complaints, my true feelings and my fearful fears of youth ministry. and i know the importance of this...i do. acting on it is somewhat foreign to me though. maybe 'foreign' is the wrong word. difficult. that's the one. i've realized over the past couple of days that i am not one to share my problems with. i would just rather do stuff on my own and spend more time worrying about stuff out of my hands than have someone on the outside tell me that it is out of my hands. i'd rather hold on to my struggles, my pains, my fears, my life than let someone else in on what it is that i hold on so tightly to. and i know God has put people in my life who are willing and able to understand me...and want to understand me. and i also know that i need to step out on that limb and trust that nobody will push me off.

My God is in a box.

I don’t know when exactly it happened. I’m sure there was a time when my God was freely swimming around the vastness of my imagination…diving in and out of its innocent waters, less concerned about my own clean, cool, uninhibiting pond than the neighbour’s dirty green pool. But soon enough, the inevitable occurred. Whether due to a lack of proper care on my part, or whether it was a taught transgression into improper maintenance -- or both -- my God was soon confined to my own dirty green water-filled hole. I have put God in a box.

Once in a while He’ll come out and surprise me with a newfound understanding…just a glimpse of his vastness, his omni-[presence][potence][science]. But it isn’t long before that new understanding frightens me. The fright of it (or the ‘it’ behind the fright) forces me to gently lower Him back inside his holding cell, until, like a Jack-in-the-Box, he will surprise me once again. Was it me who turned that handle? Was it me who caused Him to pop out in the first place? Was it a series of fortunate events, each one giving the handle a quarter-turn? Or was it a power beyond my understanding, such as the third person in the party of three we call ‘Trinity’? I don’t know, most likely a combination of all of the above. Whatever. As long as that handle keeps getting turned. As much as I’d hate to admit, I like the surprise of it all. It’s about time my pal Jack popped out again.

idiots of the world today.

so i'm driving around abbotsford around 8:20pm last night (the second night U2 plays out a sold-out concert in Vancouver), listening to the radio as usual. between songs, the DJ plays back a phone conversation he had with a lady around 8:10:

Lady: I was wondering what time U2 went on stage for their concert last night
DJ: From what I've heard, they didn't get on stage until around 8:00 or so
Lady: Oh, that's good...I was just wondering whether it was worth it for me to drive out from New West yet
DJ: It would be worth it just to see the encore...

Lady! What the heck do you mean 'I was wondering if it would be worth it'?! Give me the freaking tickets if you're going to putz around New West with two gold tickets in your hand! What are you doing? Lady!

The joys and sorrows of government

No, this post has nothing to do with the Gomery inquiry, or on any potential guesstimates on the timing of our next election. It has to do with taxes. I love the government. A few weeks ago, a nice little bonus popped into my bank account out of the blue. I don't completely understand why the government chooses to pay me off under the title 'GST Rebate' or something like that....but I certainly am not complaining. Oh, did I mention I also dislike the government? See, I figured that with me going to school full-time last semester and not really earning much by way of income, I'd have a pretty nice looking rebate coming my way. Little did I understand the workings of part-time employment and a certain benefit called CPP. Here's my understanding of the issue. When one works part-time, the employer is not required to subtract any income tax from their pay. Okay, no problem there...except during tax time, the income tax subtracted from one's pay is what is returned to that same person during tax time. When one has no income tax removed from two part-time jobs, that same person should not expect to get a return from such non-existant funds. And here's the CPP deal. When a business is payed for services provided, CPP (or Canada Pension Plan) is not deducted from that business' payment. When that same business is actually just a person providing a service for another, that person does not pay the required CPP contributions. Hence, when it comes to tax time, and one has no income tax to claim and has not payed their CPP dues, that person should not expect to get a rebate from the government at tax time. In fact...that person can actually expect to PAY the government something along the lines of $239.39. That figure just popped into my head. haha. I used to love tax time. Poop.

Mexico Thoughts

Trust. Trust is huge for the Christian community in Mexico. Why? Because that's the best thing they have ... and it goes hand in hand with faith. Evidence of that for me was on Thursday when Jarod fell ill. When Effron found out, the first thing -- the very first thing he did -- was place his hand on Jarod and pray. He prayed in spanish and finished in english. I wish I could remember his prayer in my tongue. I forget how it came about, but within minutes, Effron was sharing with Vince and I why he had just prayed for healing.
"Because we don't have medicine down here, we can't afford medicine," he said. "We have a healer, it's the best thing we can rely on."
Trust. As Effron and I spoke in the living room and later on the sundeck of the church, tears came to my eyes as I came to see how faith and trust must work together. Effron had faith God would heal, and trusted that he would see the fruits of that faith in the healing. Jarod did get well again, only after a trip to a hospital in the states. I wonder if healing would have been taken place more miraculously if we Canadians, we 'Americans' had the same faith as the Christian community of Mexico.
"You're faith has healed you," said Jesus to the blind beggar (Luke 18:42). When Jesus saw the faith of the paralyzed man and his friends, he brought healing (Luke 5:20). It wasn't just the faith of the one needing a miracle, but the faith of those who brought him to see Jesus -- his friends. As Effron prayed for Jarod I thought, That's the way it should be, but I never really blieved it would work. Only when we had brought him back to the States, to a hospital, in the hands of trained and educated doctors did I think he would be okay. Where did that faith go? ... or better yet ... why are we not raised with such faith in our Western world?
If there is one thing I want to leave Mexico with and take back with me to Canada, to BC ... to this house ... it's a faith that God will do and a trust that I will see Him do it.

randomness of the mind.

Not sure what to write, but it's been awhile since I've written here, so we'll see what happens. Um, well, nothing much has changed since March 3, except that it's almost been three weeks since then. Time absolutely flies when you're doing nothing, seriously. These past two months have been a blur. If you were to ask me when the last time it was that I sat in this chair and relaxed, I could honestly tell you that it could have been any one of the days between January 30th and now. Probably almost all of them, except for the one full day I was in Whistler and the one full day I was in Richmond. I've been told I relax well. Good thing? Bad thing? I don't know, it's probably just such a constant thing right now that somebody had to comment about it. It'll be tough to get out of this prolonged state of laziness, but I know that once I get working again I'll be constantly busy. I hear youth work is a 24/7 job, despite any indications that it's a part time position. Oh yeah, and the serious lack of money ... scratch that ... it's not just that I lack money, it's that the money I have been using comes with a 19% interest rate ... so that will inspire me to get off my arse again too.

Probably the most exciting news here is that I will be entering a Third World country for the first time in my life ... that being Mexico. I'll be jumping into a van with a ton of students and some leaders for the three day drive down in order to spend a week or so in a 'tent city' with the intent of reaching out to the Mexican community. I'm looking forward to it for two reasons: I know that an experience like this will change lives, and 1) I'm eager to see 20 or so young lives changed. 2) I know I will be changed by the experience. I don't know what to expect, but I do know that something will be different when we return. A vague statement, I know...hopefully to be clarified soon after our return.

More to come soon...

welcome to real life.

a few random people have popped in and out of my life these past few days. one girl from meford, ontario who i met while walking through vancouver, was sitting on the ground outside of a strip club begging for money. she had no place to stay that night as the shelters were full and hostels and hotels too expensive. she wants to go back to ontario but now she has a child in vancouver who she doesn't want to leave behind. she had markers and a colouring book to keep her company that night. the next girl, an 11th grader from a school here in Abbotsford, randomly (or not) sat beside me in the park up the street as i was reading. we talked for an hour and a half about things from God to animals to fears to life. interesting girl who loves being miserable. and lastly, an 18 year old guy. issues with drugs, drinking...he had a huge scare when a couple of thugs held him captive in his apartment for a few hours because his roommate owed them money. the next night he stayed at our place. now, despite death threats, he's moving back in with his roommate. all good people in different walks of life. the 11th grader asked me how God could be when there is so much misery in the world -- when bad things happen to good people. somehow, i doubt 'faith' was what she needed to hear.

Sunday -- the day of rest

(and an official day off Lent!)

9:30am • wake up
10:00am • church (haven't gone since I came back from Ontario....went to a new church, 'twas good)
11:30am • church ends, have two cups of coffee @ church
12:00pm • come home, make coffee, drink two cups, play Railroad Tycoon III (!!!)
5:00pm • realize I wasted 5 hours playing game
5:01pm • continue playing game
6:00pm • clean house
6:30pm • make supper -- french toast
6:35pm • make coffee
6:45pm • blow fuse in living room (probably the coffeemaker) -- landlords gone, don't know what to do, light candles
7:00pm • continue cleaning
7:25pm • landlords come home -- fuse box is in my closet. I knew I'd seen it somewhere
7:30pm • Bible Study, drink two cups of coffee
10:00pm • most people leave, hang out with those remaining
12:00am • listen to and get involved in theological debate about attaining perfection on earth
1:30am • theological debate ends
1:31am • Railroad Tycoon begins
3:30am • Railroad Tycoon ends, sleep begins
5:00am • wake up, toss and turn, curse coffee
5:30am • fall asleep
10:00am • wake up to a new day of caffeine free tea!