Author Archives: Gillian

Life and Times of a Student

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It is official, I am back to school.  I’ve had two days of classes thus far, although one of the lectures was cancelled due to flooding in Sooke.  I’m not joking:

Date: Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 7:37AM

Subject: Class cancellation


Good morning,

Due to severe flooding in Sooke, Dr. ——  is unable to make it in for class today.

Sincerely,

————

Department Secretary, Department of Philosophy

I guess it must be pretty bad.

The rain has also brought out what I believe is the new unofficial UVic uniform: trendy gumboots, preferably in plaid, although cute cartoon characters is also acceptable.  Lululemon hoodies are so passe, gumboots are the thing of today.

It has been an interesting two days.  I made a minor spectacle of myself as the instructor walked by just prior to class starting yesterday exclaiming about some new technology in the classroom.  I believe my words were something like “They sure didn’t have this last time I came to this university.”  Makes me sound like some kind of university player or something.  The prof game me a strange look followed by a smile before continuing to the front of the room.  *Sigh,* there is nothing like making yourself noticed on the first day!

Epiphany

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Light-giving God –
We are magi on a caravan of lumbering hope,
traveling through grinding wind and glaring sun,
chill clear nights and skin-baking days.
We come to seek Your light.

We come lumbering in hope, each of us on our own life’s journey
– traveling through times of loneliness and fear,
through heartbreak and anger,
through grief and loss,
through economic uncertainty,
through fear for loved ones caught up in war,
through our own private crises,
through the extended shock of horrific images of hurricanes and genocide,
through struggles with the mental illness of a child,
the disintegration of a parent,
the simple letting go of a child more ready to be an adult
than we are ready to allow their growth,
through the changes in a new marriage,
the welcoming of a new child,
the completion of a degree,
the vision emerging in a new work of art.

We come lumbering in hope on a journey of joys and sorrows.
We come as magi to seek Your light.

But Light-giving God,
we admit that we are also Herod the King,
trembling in fear at the news of the rising of Your light.
We admit that we are afraid that the light of Your truth may indeed rise,
and it may be threatening to us.
Like Herod,
we fear the rise of the truth of the harm we have done to others to build
our own palaces and to fortify our own power;
we fear the rise of the truth that lies beneath the political spin we put on
our own lives;
we fear to admit to ourselves the truth that may rise within us as we
acknowledge the pain of what we have done to others and what others have
done to us.

Light-giving God,
we come as trembling Herod, afraid of Your light.
But Light-giving God,
we are also magi wrapped in joy to arrive at the manger that cradles Your light.
We greet the rising light that Herod so fears.
We, too, fear this light, this truth.
For here we meet Your light and truth, the truth of our own powerlessness.
We are magi, wise and respected sages.
We are Herod the King, holding wealth and power.
Yet we are no more than this helpless infant,
no more than human flotsam on the tidal wave of time,
human beings, no more and no less.

Light-giving God,
let us sit in stillness in the light of this truth of our powerlessness,
until we can see Your real light cradled here,
until we are enveloped in the assuring light of this truth,
until we shine in the light of the common humanity You reveal to us here.

Light-giving God.
We lumber together in hope as Your church to lift Your Light.
Let the light that we lift be this light visible in the manger.
Let us lift not the light of our congratulation of ourselves,
not the light of belief in our own superiority,
not the light of our belief in our own narrow presuppositions,
not even the light of our own church.
Let us lift the light from You that we can encounter here,
the light of the power You make known to us
in the truth of our powerlessness,
the light we can see as we sit quietly as magi at the manger
learning to be at ease with our common humanity,
learning to be at ease with You.

Let this be the light we lift as a beacon in the darkness we know best.
As we lift that light,
may we too be lifted to know the true power that lies among us
waiting to rise as a beacon of our true hope.

Amen.

Dr. Susan M. (Elli) Elliott

Further Adventures of Gillian the Ridiculous

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I got a call this afternoon from the HR guy at a place I had applied for a job at.  The first thing he did was tell me I spelt my name wrong on my cover letter/resume.  Apparently I had a twitch and somehow managed to get 3 “l”s in Gillian.  Good start.  It was a great way to throw me off and make me completely uncomfortable and a bit of a stuttering mess on the phone for a quasi-interview.  

On further investigation, it seems that every single resume/cover letter/CV (including my application for Grad School) I have sent out in the last three months has had this error.  Why didn’t someone (ie big stupid me) catch this sooner?!?

Pageants

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We finally got our Christmas Pageant done this morning, after two unsuccessful attempts.  Good thing that the snow they were predicting last night never materialized or else I’m not sure what we would have done.  The kids were adorable as always and the costumes were fantastic.  Some one had made little animal costumes for all the young ones and they really were quite well done. Made me wish we’d had costumes like that when I was in Christmas pageants.  
I remember one year at St. Thomas’ where we told the story from the point of view of the animals in the Christmas story – four main parts by four different animals: a camel, a sheep, a donkey, and I can’t remember the last (perhaps horse or cow as stable representative?). I was the donkey. Please, no asinine comments…  I believe the most believable part of my costume was a fuzzy donkey hat we borrowed from somewhere.  Otherwise it was grey leggings under my grandfathers grey cardigan with a fuzzy tail pinned to the back.  I think I was 10 or 11 at the time.  
I suppose that is what happens when your mother helps to stage the pageant every year: you end up as the lead, or at least co-lead.  I clearly remember going over to the house of another poor Sunday Schooler who’s mother was also involved quite heavily in the pageant.  The two of us would have to read our lines back and forth to each other, speaking into wooden spoons to practice our microphone technique, until we knew them down pat. 
The other bit of preparation I had to undergo involved improving diction and projection.  We lived in a huge old house with two sets of staircases: one at the front and one at the back.  The back stairs had the worst echo (although it was fun to hum as you walked down them).  I used to have to stand at the top of the back stairs with mum standing at the bottom of the front ones and holler my lines until I said them s-l-o-w  e-n-o-u-g-h and e-nun-ci-ated well en-ough that they could be understood at the other end of the house.  
It would be fun to see footage of the many pageants I was in to see if they were actually any good.  (Although if someone reading this actually does have footage, I’m just kidding.  Please burn it.)
At any rate, the kids this morning were adorable and it was quite enjoyable to watch and remember the Christmas story, even three weeks late.  On reflection, it is never to late to remember the message of Christmas.

Book List 2009

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  1. A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
  2. The Enchantress of Florence – Salman Rushdie
  3. Called out of Darkness – Anne Rice
  4. The Great Game – Peter Hopkirk
  5. The Independence of Mary Bennet – Colleen McCullough
  6. A New Kind of Christian – Brian McLaren
  7. Finding George Orwell in Burma – Emma Larkin
  8. The Secret Message of Jesus – Brian McLaren
  9. Three Cups of Tea – Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin
  10. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Neffingger
  11. Moon Cakes and Maple Sugar – Marnie Copeland
  12. Becoming Human – Jean Vanier
  13. Bread in the Wilderness – Thomas Merton
  14. And it was Good – Madeleine L’Engle
  15. Everything Must Change – Brian McLaren
  16. The Great Emergence – Phyllis Tickle
  17. The Giver – Lois Lowry
  18. How (Not) to Speak of God – Peter Rollins
  19. Bad Lands -Tony Wheeler
  20. A Stone for a Pillow – Madeleine L’Engle
  21. The Green Hills of Africa – Ernest Hemingway
  22. The Magician’s Nephew – CS Lewis
  23. Tick Bite Fever – David Bennun
  24. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis
  25. Prince Caspian – CS Lewis
  26. The Horse and His Boy – CS Lewis
  27. The Jungle Book – Rudyard Kipling
  28. The Seven Story Mountain – Thomas Merton
  29. Sex, Sushi, and Salvation – Christian George
  30. Secret Lives and Other Stories – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
  31. A Man of the People – Chinua Achebe
  32. The Black Hermit – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
  33. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – CS Lewis
  34. The Silver Chair – CS Lewis
  35. Jesus au pays des solviets – Serge Caron
  36. The Silver Chair – CS Lewis
  37. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
  38. Take This Bread – Sara Miles
  39. The Last Battle – CS Lewis
  40. Sold Into Egypt – Madeleine L’Engle
  41. The Rock That is Higher – Madeleine L’Engle
  42. Two-Part Invention – Madeleine L’Engle
  43. A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali – Gil Courtemanche
  44. All Families are Psychotic – Douglas Coupland
  45. The Man Who Loved China – Simon Winchester
  46. Man’s Search for Meaning – Vicktor E. Frankl
  47. Mere Christianity – CS Lewis
  48. A Good Death – Gil Courtemanche
  49. The Post-Christian Mind – Harry Blamires
  50. The Lizard Cage – Karen Connolly
  51. Exit Music – Ian Rankin
  52. Payback – Margaret Atwood
  53. The Language of Bees – Laurie R. King
  54. The Orthodox Heretic – Peter Rollins
  55. Burmese Lessons – Karen Connolly
  56. A Fair Country – John Ralston Saul

The End of the Year is Here

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The end of the year is here. We are at a new beginning.
A birth has come, and we reenact
At its remembrance the extraordinary fact
Of our unique, incomprehensible being.

The new year has started, for moving and growing.
The child’s laugh within and through the adult’s tears
In joy and incomprehension at the singing years
Pushes us into fresh life, new knowing.

Here at the end of the year comes the year’s springing.
The falling and melting snow meet in the stream
That flows with living waters and cleanses the dream.
The reed bends and endures and sees the dove’s winging.

Move into the year and the new times’ turning
Open and vulnerable and loving and steady.
The stars are aflame; creation is ready.
The day is at hand: the bright sun burns.

– Madeleine L’Engle

2008: The Longest Year of My Life

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No that is not a catch-phrase.  This past year really has been the longest year of my life due to an intersection of the International Date Line and a leap year.  Really.  Because of our Offshore route, we crossed the date line and lost a day in 2007; we didn’t gain it back again until the spring of 2008, also a leap year.

Now, aided by Howe Sound‘s Father John’s Winter Ale, the local Chinese joint’s Dinner Combo B, and the Royal Canadian Air Farce’s last ever broadcast (its a family tradition), I am ready to ring in the New Year by looking back over the last.

It all began several hours earlier than it it did here in BC in Madang, PNG.  It was the first day of Leg 5 of Offshore and it was of to… an interesting start…  But the crew tried to make the best of it and we ended up making the usual fools of ourselves.  Either way, it was a New Years to remember.

Then it was off to Micronesia where we spent a few days. Next was Guam where there was crazy culture shock.  We sailed over the deepest part of the world in the Mariana Trench and saw temperatures drop dramatically from the 50 degrees of PNG to the mildly above zero temperatures of Okinawa, China, and Japan.

We all learnt about patience, teamwork, cooperation, patience, cold weather, rough sailing, patience…  I temporarily took up knitting to get though the toughest leg of offshore with our 35 days at sea.  Spirits improved when Katie’s boyfriend arrived in Hawaii to propose.

We made it home with few other mishaps.  I turned 26 mid-crossing from Hawaii to Washington and celebrated with a rousing game of Assassins (which I did not win, but managed to live until early afternoon).  I realized that not only was 2008 the longest year of my life, but I spent my entire 25th year on the boat.  Literally.

Now that my time on the boat is over and my time back at school is about to begin, just what have I learnt over the last year?

  • I’ve learnt a lot about trust and patience, especially when it comes to my future.  I tend to want things NOW and life usually doesn’t work that way.
  • I’ve been learning about contentment and being happy with what I have and the people I have around me.
  • I’ve spent a fair bit of time reading about contemplation and have been trying to build a sort of contemplative spirituality into my life in a more meaningful way.
  • I’ve been learning that friendship is hard work.
  • I’ve come to see that, sad as it is, some friendships don’t last forever, as much as you may try to make them.
  • I’ve been able to appreciate my whole family in ways I never knew I would.
  • I realized that as nice as it is to be able to do everything on your own, depending on others is sometimes the only way.
  • I’ve learnt (or perhaps re-learnt) that communication is key.
  • I’ve discovered that sometimes doing what is best for you may not seem like it is best for you at first glance. (Cryptic, I know.)

And that is just the serious stuff.

In my quest for continually reading new and interesting books, I read 56 books in the last year, an assorted and eclectic list of both fiction and non-fiction.  Some were good, some were better, others I wish I’d never picked up.  All in all though, there were some great reads.

And now, what am I looking ahead to in 2009?

  • I’m looking forward to going back to school and anticipating beginning a Master’s degree (pending acceptance into the program. All fingers and toes currently crossed).
  • I’m looking forward to doing some more sailing as a volunteer on the SALTS ships.
  • I’m anticipating a lot of great books to read.
  • I’m planning my next trip.  It probably won’t be in 2009, probably not even 2010, but its good to dream, right?
  • I’m excited about re-connecting with some of my UVic friends who are still there.
  • I’m looking forward to continuing involvement at church and getting to know more and more people as I spend time with the choir and in other activities.
  • I’m looking forward to living!

Home Sweet Home

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I’ve made it back to Victoria and it took a record 6 hours.  I probably could have flown across the country in that time period.  

I got to the ferry in Vancouver with time to spare for the 1200 sailing.  However the ferry for said sailing was not there, was not there, was not there.  Finally, I went to find out what was going on just as they made an announcement that our ferry was arriving in the next five minutes.  I turned just in time to see it leaving Berth 1 and maneuvering over to Berth 5, narrowly missing an incoming ferry…  Good start.

Once on board, they made an announcement about high winds preventing them from getting there in time blah blah blah.  I went and talked to the Chief Steward and found out the real reason was a faulty Berth 4 resulting in needing to be at Berth 1 which doesn’t have a connecting ramp and when they went to move to Berth 5, a faulty starboard engine was discovered.  Slightly dodgy.  
We arrived in Victoria nearly an hour late resulting in me missing the express bus to downtown.  Milk run it was.  I finally arrived home, two bus routes later, around 4:30pm, nearly six hours after leaving.  Go-olly.
Welcome home.