Tag Archives: life

Still Light

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I took this on my phone tonight, as I got home from practicum site #1 in time to shove some food in my mouth before heading out to practicum site #2 for some evening appointments. The interesting thing about having a schedule that does not vary each week is that I can see the changing of times of light and dark much easier.

For example, I got up at 5:30 this morning to head to yoga. On my ride home at 7:30, the sun was peeking over Mt Tolomie and starting to turn the tops of the trees beside the road a beautiful fiery gold. Last month, it was still pitch black at that time of day. And then again in the evening: Monday nights I am usually heading home around 5:30 and Tuesday nights I head out to site #2 at around the same time. On each of those trips in the last two days I have stopped to contemplate whether or not I needed to turn my bicycle lights on or if it was still light enough to safely ride. Last month, it was pitch black by 4 or 4:30.

Slowly but surely the days are getting longer.

When I took this picture and posted it on instagram tonight, I put the caption “Still Light” on it because, well, it was still light outside at 5:30. Reflecting later however, I realized how it captures a moment of stillness, of quiet, and that it is an image of wonderfully still light. Light is anything but still though. But the stillness of the tree be-ing in light is something I am now thinking about.

Making Bread

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I made bread tonight. I’ve been eating it a lot more lately, consequently I’ve been making my two loaves every week and a half or so. Sometimes more frequently. I’d make more at a time except for the fact that I hate freezing it and I only have  two loaf pans.

There are a lot of blogs that I follow. A lot. Thankfully, I have an RSS set up so that I can just have them appear rather than me having to waste time going and checking them each day. One section of my followed blogs is a group of people from all over the world who are committed to living their faith differently. Not different in the “Oh, she’s diff-er-ent” sort of way, but different in the way that makes me stop and think about how I live my faith. Different because they have obviously stopped to think about what works in their lives and because they are continually challenging their and my theology.

Today, a post popped up by Cheryl in Australia. She contributed to a book I read earlier this year which I really liked, and I’ve been following her blog ever since. It is interesting that I read this post today, bread day, because it is all about bread.

We get really excited about yeast when we bake bread. I, for one, love to watch those hard, round pellets grow and become alive and then, unseen, cause my bread to expand and rise. Yeast is so Biblical too, isn’t it. Matthew 13 has us reading the words of Jesus explain that the kingdom of heaven is like yeast that gets mixed into a large amount of flour until it works itself all the way through the dough.

Cheryl got me thinking about how the yeast isn’t really the important part. We get all excited about the yeast, but we could still eat bread without it. It just wouldn’t be light and fluffy. It is really the flour and water that is important.

I got to thinking further, and I may be way off of the original point here, about how the flour and water are so ordinary. Yes, as Cheryl said, the higher quality flour is going to make higher quality bread. But it is flour. It is the ordinary things that God takes to make the stuff we need.

I don’t know if that even makes sense, but that is where my thoughts wandered tonight as I kneaded bread (and also made yam and black bean burgers, and chipotle yam rolls!).

Young and Old in Church

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I had a letter read on CBC radio last week. It was a bit of an event for me… nearly everyone else in the family has managed to get on CBC (well, my sister has anyway), so now it was my turn. The letter was in response to a short documentary aired on the Vancouver Island morning show on Radio 1.

In this program, the interviewer was looking at spirituality amongst younger people in Victoria. Apparently only about 2-5% of the population of Victoria attends church on a regular basis (compare that to about 20% nationally and closer to 45-50% in the United States). However, we are one in one of the most spiritually rich places in North America. They then investigated some churches that are working to reach out to the “20 & 30-something” demographic (of which I am a part). One of the church leaders interviewed is the leader of a church-plant by one of the break-away Anglican groups in North America. In the course of the interview, it was revealed that this church, as well as the other featured church, aim their services exclusively at the 20-30’s in Victoria. I say exclusively because the interviewer could not attend a service because he was “too old”.

Too old?! Since when is anyone too old for church? One of the techniques (if you can call it that) is the cafe-style of church where participants sit around in groups and each, in turn, expound on the topic of the day. Call me crazy, but I am sure that there are some in the older generations to whom this would appeal and there are as many in the target generation who would benefit from the wisdom of their elders.

With that in mind, I sat down and wrote a letter.

“Maybe I am an abnormal 20-something, but I know I am not alone amongst 20-somethings in these sentiments: I go to church on a near-weekly basis and, even more shocking, go to a church with a number of people who could be my parents and grandparents. And I love it. Excluding older generations from church is not only presumptuous but a little short-sighted. One of the things I value about my “church experience” is the opportunity to interact with multiple generations. Where else can people interact with kids, teens, young adults, middle aged and elderly adults all at once? I have learnt many, many things from these older generations both about life and faith. By preventing that interaction, young adults leave themselves without mentor-ship and close themselves off to a world of experience and growth. Maybe they’ve forgotten, but those 80-year-old’s were 20-somethings like us once and a lot of them were trying to push the boundaries of church then the way we are today.”

They read it on air.

Thoughts? Do you like going to church with multiple generations? Or would you rather spend your Sunday morning/evening with people solely your own age? Have you gained anything from worshipping with older folk or does it detract from your experience?

Running, Clear Night Skies, and Good Teachers

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“Are you a runner? Because you look like a runner.”

I’ve had strange comments from patients at work before… The last time I had one about athletics was a few years ago when Silken Laumann asked me if I was a national rower.

For some reason, I answered the running query with “Yes, but not lately.”  The last race I ran was in 2002. The last time I did any serious running training was probably closer to 1999.

But it got me thinking, why not run again? I’ve been sitting on that thought (quite literally, actually. My rear has now melded to the couch) for the last couple of weeks. Every day, I have had a great excuse for not running until today when I finally told myself to stop being stupid and get out there. Did I mention that I pulled some muscles in my back yesterday and it has been sore all day?

I’m glad I went. The overcast sky of today has cleared up and the clear night sky is beautiful. The moon is nearly full and it casts a glow over everything. I head down the street and through the park before turning up the hill towards the university. The park is in a little dip and it always seems cooler in there than at our house half a block away. As a result, there is slippery frost on the path. As I run through the dark park and up the hill, I look up and see that the sky was clear and all the constellations can be seen. There is majestic Orion standing straight up below the moon. Beside him, Taurus, the zodiac sign I was for one day. Then the Pleiades, Casseopia, the Dippers, Gemini…

I began to think back to my love of staring at the night sky. Where did it come from? I remember being drawn into stargazing on Offshore when we could sit for hours at a time under a huge black umbrella of the sky – an umbrella with millions of pinpricks of light all over it. It got to the point where I could tell if the helmsman was off course just by looking at the sky.

I loved the sky before that. I may have not known and been able to identify all of the constellations, but the interest was there.

Keep running… cross Gordon Head Road, good thing I have a light because there are actually cars on this road… Through the university. I love the pathways with arches of trees overhanging. I’m surprised I haven’t run into any deer yet. Through residences… I’m surprised how few people there are out tonight, though it is 10:30pm and a little chilly. I’ve got two thermal running shirts on, plus an old soccer jersey. I’m through the university now, to Sinclair Road. I came the better way: this hill is much nicer to go down than up.

I had the same teacher for both grade 5 and grade 6. Mr Shurrock was one of the best teachers I ever had. After a fairly disastrous Math experience in grade 1, he was the first teacher that actually believed I could do Math and, unsurprisingly, I excelled in his class. I may not have ever become a Math-wiz (as my college transcript can attest to), I did well at Math for the rest of my elementary and high school career. With Mr Shurrock, we studied all sorts of interesting things, including astronomy. I remember researching constellations and drawing them out in our notebooks. I think this was one of the first places where I encountered these stories in the night sky.

Down the hill, loop south along Cadboro Bay Road. Still running. The initial cramp has long-gone and I’m actually enjoying this. Who knew? It is colder beside the ocean, but the air is lovely and fresh. Annie Lennox, Ella Fitzgerald, and Moxy Fruvous are shuffling on my iPod. I have no idea how this combination made it together on the player.

Up the long, slow incline to Cedar Hill X Road. This is my road, but it is a fair ways to go yet. The last part is downhill and I turn in to head back through the park. I slow to walk through the park and take a few minutes to look up and enjoy the sky once again.

Thirty minutes. Seven and a half kilometres. I guess that isn’t half bad for not having run in a long time.

Things I Have Done This Week:

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  • Made (and eaten) chocolate chip, apricot, pecan cookies
  • Counselled my first client as an almost full-fledged counsellor
  • Been to yoga twice
  • Read 2 books
  • Been on three dates
  • Built myself a new profile website here
  • And another site here
  • Drank a lot of coffee
  • Watched half a season of Gilmore Girls
  • Knitting
  • Almost been hit by a pickup truck
  • Reorganized my bedroom furniture

Transitions

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I rang in the New Year sitting on my friends couch with a tired dog sitting on my feet. It was great to spend time with good friends. New Years always seems fairly anticlimactic. Is this just a holiday invented for parties and drinking?

Anyway.

I nearly reached my goal of a book per week. The 5 weeks of two courses and the two months of leading a grief group/organizing a discussion series/school/work took a toll so I was three books shy… but it isn’t about numbers. I read some great books in 2010, and some less than fantastic (and a lot of parts of text books).

A bunch of things got crossed off of the list this year, and there are many works in progress.

The close of 2010 also saw me finishing off all of the coursework for my Masters. Only the practicum remains. I start 2011 with a certain amount of apprehension. My life is completely changing as of this week. I am dropping down to two days of work per week, meaning I am going to have to budget finances closely to break even with living expenses. I am hoping to be getting 20 hours per week of practicum spread between two sites. However, as of right now, I have no appointments booked. So now I have the concern of actually finding people with whom to work on top of the nerves of actually counselling real people.

On a positive note, Christmas in Edmonton was a lot of fun. I have had an unusual amount of time with my sister this year, between a week in San Francisco and a week in Edmonton with just the two of us. We lazed around, walked endlessly, and enjoyed doing nothing and still a lot of things. We managed to connect with nearly everyone in the family, including a Christmas morning skype with Dad and Colleen in Malawi. So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Eclipsed: Who Has Seen the Moon?

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I remember the first lunar eclipse I saw. I was young, I don’t remember how old. Young enough that Dad would still pick me up and hold me in his arms.

We lived on Bleecker still, in Belleville. My room was the bedroom across the hallway from my parent’s bedroom.

My parent’s bedroom had a little balcony off of it. It was over top of the sunroom, what had been an old porch when they moved into the house. I am not sure if the balcony was there when they bought the house, but it was a great thing to have when I was younger. I recall many lunch times sitting up there with Mum and Jen in lawn chairs. I guess it got more sun than the front porch and the garden.

I remember one evening being woken up by Mum or Dad. They brought me out onto that porch off of their room and Dad pointed up at the sky.

The moon was gone. Hidden behind the shadow of the earth. Or at least that is what I know now.

I don’t remember if I was given an explanation of what was going on. I just remember the wonder of the full moon disappearing.

The next morning, pictures of the eclipse were on the front page of the Belleville Intelligencer. I felt important at school for having been up to witness it happen in real time.

* * * *

It was an overcast day all day today in Victoria, nearly the other side of the country from my first lunar eclipse sighting. The clouds cleared up just long enough to watch the moon disappear. Then they rolled back in again.

If the moon has reappeared, I cannot say.

Back to Community

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Back on the subject of community… I think I first broached here in March 2009 and it has not been far from my thoughts since then.

A friend made an interesting comment the other week. This friend is most assuredly not connected in anyway to a Christian or religious community and would likely run the other way if I were to suggest a visit to a church or meeting with too many religious folk. I, on the other hand, have never been shy to mention in my friend’s presence the fact that I have received great benefit from church communities and love being a part of one.

I tagged along to a 100-mile dinner party last weekend. It was a birthday celebration (a celebration where I did not know the birthday boy) and potluck where people were invited to bring dishes made from ingredients produced within 100 miles. It was a veritable feast and some wonderful experimentation happened. During the evening, we ate a lot of food, some excellent conversations happened and I met some very interesting people, some games were played, and then I needed to go home (1:00am is quite late when you have to be at church at 8:30am). As we were cycling away from the home where the dinner took place, my friend said something like, “Environmental people are a pretty good and responsible group to spend time with. It is the best community to be a part of.” I know I am off on the wording, but the gist of what I took from the statement was a gybe directed at religious groups (a fairly common occurrence in our discussions) and a statement advocating community and belonging.

Here we had, on a Saturday night, a group of about 20 young adults, in the 24-30 range, gathering together to share around something they are passionate about. There was good and engaging discussion. There was food. There was a common purpose. It was fun.

But it also felt like it was lacking. Yes, I can get behind no-waste initiatives. I can agree with a moratorium on offshore drilling on our coastline. I am all for urban sustainability projects and food security. However for me it goes deeper than that. At the heart of all of these discussions, I always come back to Christ. Why do I care for people and for the environment? Because of my faith in God.

If I didn’t have that hope and that knowledge of my future, I am not sure that I would see the purpose of environmentalism. I would have loved for discussions at the 100-mile dinner to go beyond the surface to more fundamental questions of life and belonging. These questions need to include discussing how we relate to and deal with the environment, however they cannot be isolated to them. These are questions that are best answered in community because community can be the core force needed to jump-start any initiatives. Community strengthens, supports, challenges, and encourages. We need more of these types of communities – with Christ at the centre – that are unafraid to challenge the status quo on all issues. That is a community I would be a part of.

Lottery of Life

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Some hard-hitting images from Save the Children UK this year. They were brought to my attention by Mike at Waving or Drowning.

He writes about blessing and cursing. Namely, how we talk about how “blessed” we are to live in the place where we do. The converse of this is that we somehow say that those who live in less wonderful places are somehow cursed. While I hadn’t thought about this dichotomy before, at least not the way Mike describes it, I have definitely experienced a bad taste in my mouth when we talk about how blessed we are and how much God has blessed us to live where we do…

Check out their campaign at The Lottery of Life. If I were born today, I would have a minuscule chance of being born as a Canadian: I can’t even see Canada on the wheel as a percentage of world population. Today, I’d have a much better chance of of being born in China, India, Nigeria, or Mexico. The interesting thing is, regardless of which country you end up in, there are issues that need to be dealt with in each place. While we might be “blessed” in Canada, there are still issues that need to be dealt with. We are amongst the worst in the developed world at dealing with our environmental issues. Our First Peoples are routinely marginalized. I walk downtown and see dozens of people asking for money, for food, offering work for food, desiring a place to live. The cold snap of a few weeks ago brought to the forefront our inability to house everyone in this city. Our foodbanks cannot keep up with demand and the foodbank at the university is the emptiest it has ever been. We have kids killing themselves because of bullying… or kids being killed by bullies.

No, we do not have land mines to be wary of when we go for a walk in the meadow or down by the ocean. No, we do not have armed rebel groups or rioting after electoral fraud (we just have two leader-less political parties and plenty of in-fighting). But we are not all there and there is a lot of work to be done. Are we blessed? Yes… but not to the exclusion of everyone else.

How do we get more young people in church?

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I am kind of, it feels like, the token “under-30” at church at times. Not that I am the only under-30, I am just one of the more involved under-30s who appears at church on a fairly regular basis. By and large, however, my generation is dramatically under-represented in church, at least many of the ones I frequent. Many of our churches, especially in the mainline denominations, are struggling with numbers; churches are slowly (or not-so slowly) getting smaller and smaller as parishioners die with no one to replace them.

It is a sad state of affairs and it leads to the above question often being asked. As the apparent spokes-person for the “young people” at church, I often get asked variations of that question. My favourite version so far went something like this:

The Christmas bazaar is coming up in a few weekends, Gillian, I’d love to have you and some of your young friends help out at it. It would be a great way to get them to come to church.

I’m sorry, in what universe would I invite my friends to church to volunteer at a Christmas bazaar that amounts to little more than a giant rummage sale that serves lunch? I’m sure that is the best way to get more young people in church. If you can’t hear the sarcasm dripping off of my words, please reread that paragraph and insert sarcasm.

What, then, do we do? I have lots of unformulated and inarticulate ideas, but most of them revolve around one simple premise: stop trying. Stop trying to get young people into church. Instead, start going outside of church and hanging out with young people and start enjoying life with them. If they decide to come and check out your church, cool. If they haven’t, you’ve still made a new friend and you can both be blessed by your friendship.

If, however, you are like some people and like lists, I highly recommend this post by an American university chaplain. It was recommended to me by the blog of an English priest. It is worth the few minutes to click over and read, and I think that many churches need to implement it least some of her suggestions.