Uncoordinated

The movers came today.

I have pasta in the cupboard that I was going to have for dinner, but my pots are on the boat.

No problem.

I have some ravioli that I can heat in the microwave. Or could, if I had my can opener.

I pulled a towel aside to keep it before they packed my bathroom stuff, but they saw it and packed it anyways. Thankfully, I had one in the laundry that managed to evade them.

I like my blanket - it's nice and fuzzy and warm, and I don't need a sheet with it. But it won't fit in my suitcase, so I had to either send it on the boat or leave it behind. It's on the boat. Hopefully, aforementioned towel will be dry by evening, because it's going to be doing double duty.

I kind of feel like having one of the special Belgian beers I had been saving for a special occasion.

Guess what's keeping the can opener company.


And it's only been 6 hours.


Oh well.

I Like Him

I saw a one-legged bike courier riding in front of my place. He caught my eye as he was going by and gave me a nod and a look that said very distinctly, "yeah, you better believe it".

Now THERE is a guy who's up for a challenge. Very nice.

Honking in Three Langauges

Finally, the Swiss have a reason to honk. They beat Portugal tonight, and even though they're still eliminated from the tournament, it's a good way to finish it off.

Way to go, boys - play hard to the end.

Flashback

I used to clean blinds.

We would go into a home or business in the morning, take down all the blinds (venetians, verticals, pleated shades...), take them back to our shop, clean and dry them, and then deliver them at the end of the day.

It was a mixed bag... it helped pay for a lot of books, classes, and food. It was a fascinating study in business process change, training, and management, because I was leading teams with extremely high turnover and had pretty free reign with how they were trained and managed on-site. It really screwed up my back. It made me appreciate, in a way that's almost scary, how good it is to have a job that doesn't require me to shower when I get home.

Anyway, today there are some guys working on the heating in our office. They're moving the desks that are close to the walls. They're moving shelves full of books. I guess in a little while they're going to start tearing stuff apart. And it's hard to do that discretely.

And it makes me remember that feeling of going into an office, having to take off my shoes and climb on desks to get to windows... struggling with blinds that were big, and heavy, and in awkward spots to reach, trying to do the best job I could... sweating, straining, sometimes really pushing myself to physical extremes that I never would have expected would be required for that job. But I could always tell what the people were thinking.... "I work in an office; he's cleaning the things that no one here wants to clean". I wanted to tell them... I'm smart, I'm capable... I could do so much more than this, if someone would just give me a chance.

Well, someone's given me a chance now, and I'm doing just fine. I'm glad that I had that experience, though, just like I'm glad I've been able to live in a place where I don't understand the language that well... where I sound like a 5 year-old when I try to speak, and make stupid cultural mistakes. Because now I know how to look at the men moving the desks like they're real people. And when I hear people speaking another language on the bus in Calgary, I'm not going to feel pissed-off or threatened. I'm going to remember being in their shoes.

I wish I was more sensitive, more sympathetic. But I'm glad that I've been able to have some experiences that, even though they've been tough, have helped me to learn a little bit of empathy. It's slow, you know? It's a lot slower than I want it to be. But I'm getting there.

The Holy Season

It's interesting - as we enter the Christmas season I'm always faced with the same realization: it just doesn't feel like a spiritual time to me.

I'm not sure what it is... maybe the fact that it seems to be a pagan festival co-opted by the church. Maybe it's because we have no idea of the actual day of Jesus' birth, so celebrating on that particular one seems a bit odd. But I think that most of it is that I can't help but to compare it to Easter.

At Easter, Christ chose to give up his life. And, more significantly than that, he chose to become sin for us. I don't think most of us can begin to comprehend giving up our life for someone else, but we do know that it's something that some people choose to do. They do it because they love their children, or love their country, or just believe that if they see someone in need and can meet it, they must, regardless of how it may put their own lives at risk.

But I believe that the horror and utter, unimaginable gulf between a perfect God and the sin that he was faced with was like nothing that we can begin to understand. We don't have an equivalent; we can't comprehend what Christ became willing to take on. We can't even come close.

I guess it's in those terms that I think of Christmas. The thought of God becoming man is amazing, and beautiful, and worthy of celebration. But the idea of him dying for man is much more. So if we're sitting together at a Christmas service, singing about joy, and I look somewhat less than joyful, it's not just the carols: I've skipped ahead to where the story gets serious. It's good and it's beautiful and perfect. But it's heavy.

Fire

It's been a heavy week, and most of my energy has been invested in something I never wanted to do. It's going into a burning building to save a child - my own child. No one in their right mind would want to do it: I would have done anything to avoid it.

But once the fire has been lit in a dark corner and fed, once it spreads beyond the curtains to the walls and ceiling, the options are reduced pretty quickly.

So, I go in.

I try to hold on to her, not to lose her in the chaos or be distracted by the crumbling remains of what was our home. I try to make my arms around her, my voice in her ear more real and more lasting, somehow bigger and more present to her, than the flames that threaten to consume her. I try to shield her eyes, to keep her head buried in my shoulder. God, don't let her see the fire.

I hope that we both make it out. I pray that I can find a way to cover her, and that the scars that will be had will be on my body, and not on hers.

I hope that I can find the door.

I hope that, eventually, I can find a place for her to rest that isn't in danger of being burned down again. And I hope that when we get there, the memory of the flames won't keep her from sleeping. I hope that she doesn't grow up to just exist, waiting until the next fire, assuming it's only a matter of time before someone starts another one. I hope she finds safety, and I hope she can recognize it and let herself go in it when she does.

I hope.



I'm off for the weekend, to try and get my bearings, to find some clean air to breath, to create something beautiful and to be with people I love. I'll see you on Monday.

One Of Those Days

I'm having one of those days when my mind (and maybe more) is not working like I want it to... I feel like something inside has shut down, given up, taken the ball and gone home. And the rest of me wouldn't mind following.

I had a lot of years of living that way - living more internally than externally - and it would be easy to slide back into it. It's easy, it's safe, and it's predictable. But it's a funny thing... since getting a good taste of what truth is like, the comfort that can come from living in even a well-meant fantasy has lost its sheen. I remember how good it felt when I was lost in the middle of it, but I can see now that it's like the numbness that sets in on a cold, cold day... it's not a sign that I'm getting warmer and better. It's a sign that I just don't feel the cold anymore, and if I stay there for too long it will kill me.

It's a funny thing about hypothermia - eventually, you just don't care. You let it kill you because you don't have the strength or will left to do otherwise. I've heard stories of people taking off their clothes and walking naked into a blizzard to their death. By the end, the lie has such a hold on them that they don't even know what the truth is.

But I know better, now.

So I'm choosing to face the cold head-on. To feel it and let it buffet me and mark me, to chill me to the bone but not to numb me. The storms that I've lived through have not made me weak or sad or frightened to carry on; they've given me muscle where I had fat, sight where I had nothing but confusion, and faith and hope where I could not see any reason for hope. And this one won't be any different. So bring on the wind, the cold, the pain and the confusion. I'm ready.