for Joel

You know who you are, friend, and this post is dedicated especially to you. This is from my five-year-old brother (the one who brought you the genius of the knock-knock joke about Q, the Fat-head).

On Wednesday, he came home from school and asked me if snakes laid eggs. Then he asked if turtles laid eggs, if spiders, dogs, cats, eagles, and so forth laid eggs and I answered each question to the best of my knowledge. Then, to see how much he actually understood about the whole concept of egg-laying I asked, "Do you lay eggs?"
He responded, "I don't lay anything."
Satisfied, I nodded, "Oh."
Then he continued, "You know what I lay?"
"What?" I asked.
"I lay poo!" he exclaimed. After a beat, he said, "And when I wanna go pee, I go 'PEEEEE!!'" [for the last word he thrust out his pelvis and squealed the EEs to emphasize his point]. He concluded with, "And then I go on the toilet so I can lay my poo eggs so they can crack."


What do you think, Joel? Is this up to your standards of hilarity?

Blogging in the midst of Psychoticness

I was watching an interesting show last night on the Life network about dealing with children that parents are finding too difficult to handle. They bring in an expert for a week and get the family on track, pointing out their faults and strengths. A clip of some random woman (a child-care expert) was spliced into the family's story and she said two things that I think are great, not only for child-rearing situations, but probably in other sitches.

1 -- Children should be disciplined in the original sense of the word - "guided" - like the Disciples.
2 -- When children are misbehaving, the parent should ignore the behavior not the child (we get this confused all the time).


Two weekends ago, I was in a car with my friend and we were discussing how valuable lost souls are (I think our pastor had just talked about the parable of the lost sheep that morning). I was reminded of something my high school Economics teacher said to us when he wanted us to understand how currency works in our society.

He asked, "If you lost a $20 bill, how long would you look for it?" The human response would be to look until you found it. Mr Whitacker elaborated, saying we would look for the money as long is it had value. Interestingly enough, it is the belief/consent of all people in Canada that gives the bill its twenty-dollar value. I remarked to my friend (somewhat surprized by the connection) that our attitude toward lost money is like God's attitude toward lost men. He will look for the sheep as long as it is lost because His desire for it to return to the flock never diminishes. My dad once lost a $20 bill inside his car door when it slid into the same slot where the window pane retracts and he took apart the door to get it back. The craziest part of this whole analogy is that God does not only look for $20 bills until they are found but He would even look for a one-cent coin until it was returned. (Remember those times you scrambled for a bus ticket and, wildly yanking the insides of your pockets out, you let the nickels and pennies remain on the sidewalk as you jumped on the bus?) God amazes me with His dedication. It is simply mind-boggling how much more dedicated He is to the Great Commission than we are and a very good thing, too.

free day!

Classes at the University of Guelph were cancelled to-day and this made me realize something, given what my day was supposed to look like and what it actually looked like. God's grace is big enough to cover over ANY fault of mine. The emotion and mental turmoil I underwent this morning/afternoon is difficult to put into words but I think some kind of description, at least, would help express my sentiment.

Often when I undershoot my projected wake-up time (by a considerable enough amount) I find myself bombarded by derogatory comments/insults/painful truths, and so forth in a manner that I must now conclude is not all my own doing. (Did that make sense?) I am weak in the mornings, very weak. My ability to think rationally is about 65% damaged which is a devastating blow to say the least.

This Thursday (aujourd'hui) I had seven important things to do and, based on when I thought I woke up, I would be able to do four of them but not with any style or grace. I went to bed late and was planning to wake up at 7.15 because my first class of the day is scheduled for 8.30. The first time I saw the clock to-day was around 11.00 and all I could do was stare. I remember staring and being lost in speechlessness and shock for more seconds than I recollect. Then the name-calling began. I was told how much of a screw-up I am and made to think that getting out of bed was now completely futile. That is a gross feeling. I drifted back to sleep because my brain did not conceive of urgency (it's filed under thinking rationally) and the next time I saw the clock, it read 15h24.

Yes, the same kind of disgust passing through your mind passed through mine when I saw the time and just thought, "How could I do this?" Now I was for sure-for sure awake because, though I do not do rationality well, my brain is always dead-on with its mathematical calculations and I knew this meant I had gotten about 11 hours of sleep. I lay there trying to think of the email I would need to write to the person I failed to meet up with this morning as well as a few other things I needed to take care of. Then I spied my cellular telephone that was beside my bed, almost at eye-level. 12h03 it said.

How I set my clock three hours ahead is beyond my knowledge but, rest assured, this was a well-recieved mistake. Part of my in&out of sleep thoughts had been prayers to God asking for help and forgiveness in a manner that was profuse but not quite sincere. The truth is that, in the back of my mind, I did not think anything could make this day right in that sort of "God, You really do look out for me," oh-so-humbling kind of way. It could have been one of those James 1 days where I just need to plod through, reaping what I've sewn. (Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. [v2-3]) I don't like those days but, if they make me "stronger" I can deal.

Encouraged by this three-hour grace period, I rose out of bed to check my email (a fine way to start the day, I might add! Forget breakfast!). What did I see as subject lines? "Weekly Meeting Cxl'ed," "today and tomorrow's due date," "University Closed." At first I didn't believe it, assuming this was only for SOME people or it had been a warning back in the AM that was now falsified. Lo and behold, upon opening a few mails - and conferring with the university's official website - I see that, yes indeed, God's grace covers all my faults.

Let me be a better man. Let me learn from my mistakes not because I do not want to over-work God in doling out all His goodness but because it is better to avoid mornings like mine where I descend to the pits of self-worthlessness and find scrawled on the side of the cavern, "Jesus was here," only to realize that this pit in particular is off-limits to me. It is finished.

declaration part six OR siftingsorting (4)

I found this piece de papier on my floor and it fits into two blog series - one about thoughts on evangelism and another on separating wheat from chaff (physically speaking) in my life.

"less of me, more of You
"he who sows sparingly reaps sparingly.
"put yourself out there - you are not alone.

"'Again, it might be really scary but if God calls you to it, it'll be a blessing.'"

I scribbled on this paper in hopes of psyching myself up for evangelism. It was almost like I was admonishing myself. Anyways, it was the last line that I thought most magnificent of all. It was told to me (online) by a friend who was encouraging me to pursue an outreach idea. Wow, he knows his stuff.

There was one more thing written on the paper from another friend of mine who I like to think of as my personal court jester: "You're so wise, stupid."

siftingsorting (3)

Here is a quotation from an instant-messaging conversation that took place on 01 January 2002 (I think we talked all night until 06h). It is a response to the question, "what is white culture?" something we were encouraged to think about in a first-year course called, Reading in the Contemporary World. I enjoyed the course, I truly did. It was a good transition course from secondary to post-secondary English classes. Yum, I like. My professor was pretty cool, too, what with all his Simpsons references, quotations and t-shirts.

The line --

"(it's) the heritage that is lost on the verge of self realization with their
strict belief on what they're not, but no definite concensus on what they are.. "

I saved that in my email Inbox in April 2003 with plans to "decipher" it some other time. In the last 2 1/2 years I have looked at it a few times but to-night, I finally read it and thought it was not too deep nor abstract so I figured I could delete the email and immortalize the quotation here. I'm a strange person and I know it.

The question was posed to us as a "think about this outside of class" kind of assignment, not a "do this for grades" kind. I liked the question and did have a reasonable amount of free time on my hands. I called my OAC English teacher - at work - one day to ask him the question because I thought he could afford me a good answer or at least another good place to look. He did not have much of an answer (to my recollection, though I could look for it) but he did do something funny. While talking to one of my friends who was in his class that year, I discovered that the teacher had actually posed the question to the class because he thought it was a good something to think about. It was a "Writer's Craft" course so, I think he's allowed to get away with stuff like that. Man, did I ever like that course. It expanded my definition of poetry (and prose, I guess) and writing in general. Man, I owe that teacher a debt of gratitude. It was such a challenging and fulfilling course. Ah.. oh ahh... it yea. Hm, I'll stop there.

There's nothing like a post written stream-of-conscious style, eh?

two lines to remember

"If you can't say anything nice, don't talk about the President." - Stephen Colbert

"I could never marry an artist because I'm doing the art thing.. so..we prolly wouldn't have a house." - Annie Ahmad

mental-note-taking

This Friday, I attended an event celebrating Black History Month (or as I recently discovered it could alternately be called, "African Heritage Month"... : ) through Spoken Word.

There were two men who came to speak to us in a way that, put simply, blew my mind (and I am sure I was not the only one). I think one of the guys' URL was http://www.whenthesewordsspeak.com and I suppose it's worth checking out to hear some of the bombs he drops. Speaking in tight rhyme - to me - is one of the most impressive and powervul ways to express oneself. There is something about the unique organization of sounds that hits you in waves of bam-bam-bam and you struggle to keep up (though you miss nothing).

Here are a few brilliant ideas that I recollect from their presentations:
- music can only take part of the blame for how we act (specifically in terms of violence and so forth) - no more, no less - because it does give you ideas but you still have control over yourself
killa line: "it brings out no more than what was already inside of you"
- when two slave-drivers walked together and one spied his property afar, he exclaimed, "Yo, that's my nigger." when a black youth walks with his friends and spies another (black) acquaintance afar he says, "Yo! That's ma nigga!"

The second fellow had a peice called, "The Sum of Her Parts," and boy! could it ever instigate a resurgence of chivalry if he who had ears would listen. The man took responsibility (finally!) for what women are doing to themselves (ourselves?). He said that men created the image too lofty to attain and women, falling short, are judged by each part and driven to change them with money, pain and general artificiality. The worst part? The man still does not see the whole of her. Dude said, she presents you with her whole - prizing her soul - and all the man takes her for is her hole. Imagine.. presenting the whole out of desperation - even emphasizing the soul -, being accepted/exploited for which pieces make the cut and yet still not being worth holding onto. [Here I write my own summary, not all directy quotations.] I thought, if this man could just tell it to his peers, how this world would change. How amazing to see a man take responsibility. As with the "Murder Music" song, mentioned above, we note of course that women take part of the blame because no one forces them to listen to what the world says. However, I'd argue it is easy to be influence/brain-washed when you have no alternative in-coming messages.

my wedding collection

Last Thursday, I started a collection of things to take to a wedding and here they are.

Something old: Choosing not to respond to someone's email (or instant message) is strikingly similar to walking away from someone after they've posed a question directly to your face (i.e. slightly rude).

Something new: (While contemplating the discipline of fasting--) God does not take pleasure in us experiencing pain but He delights when we persevere through pain for His sake. I have often thought that, if it does not hurt, then it cannot be good (when it comes to sacrificial/selfless-type things like this).

Something borrowed: I appreciate all the Good King Wenceslasses* because I do not like getting snow inside my shoes.

Something blue: Sometimes I feel like my life is a joke without a punchline. [In this case, I take "blue" in the figurative sense like "gloomy, depressed; dismal, dreary"**]



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* GOOD KING WENCESLAS - John M. Neale

Good King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even.
Brightly shone the moon that night, though the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight, gathering winter fuel.

“Hither, page, and stand by me, if you know it, telling,
Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?”
“Sire, he lives a good league hence, underneath the mountain,
Right against the forest fence, by Saint Agnes’ fountain.”

“Bring me food and bring me wine, bring me pine logs hither,
You and I will see him dine, when we bear them thither.”
Page and monarch, forth they went, forth they went together,
Through the cold wind’s wild lament and the bitter weather.

“Sire, the night is darker now, and the wind blows stronger,
Fails my heart, I know not how; I can go no longer.”
“Mark my footsteps, my good page, tread now in them boldly,
You shall find the winter’s rage freeze your blood less coldly.”

In his master’s steps he trod, where the snow lay dinted;
Heat was in the very sod which the saint had printed.
Therefore, Christian men, be sure, wealth or rank possessing,
You who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing.

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/g/o/goodking.htm

** http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=blue

There is something within me that has opposed guilt for as long as I can remember. As I got older, I understood better this repulsion and soon enough I could articulate it, putting my finger precisely on the offending emotion.

In my past year, in relationship with Jesus, I have learned many lessons and truths connected to guilt. I love Romans 8:1 that says, "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." In an entry about the PASSION concert in Toronto, I mentioned that Louis Giglio had reminded us that "shame is over with" (shame here I equate with guilt for the sake of argument) and the revelation struck me hard though I know this as a truth. There is something marvellous about shame - as in it makes me marvel - where it can take over your whole being and turn you into a very sorry and sad creature. Many men on Earth walk in shame, some are aware of it, others are not yet so, because inherently we know when something has gone wrong in our lives. You might love pornography and feel great when you access it but, at some point, you will feel dirty and regretful beyond belief, left only with the options of denial, self-pity or more pornography - or perhaps all three combined. Some of us become ashamed of our arrogance or pride when we realize that we are utterly alone because of how much we boast. Some are shamed by a choice to reject the chuch (in whatever sense you recognize that), with the desire to return marred by the assurance that they blew their chances BIG TIME. (For the record, the deadline for getting right with the church - in the Body-of-Christ sense; it's not a building - is the end of life on earth as we know it. I don't know when that is. To be honest, I hope it is not very soon but I can tell you that the church is waiting anxiously for your return so don't let ANY man reject you or make you jump through hoops. There is no membership fee, no initiation process, no medical exam and no sales person will visit. There is instead an unconditional, perpetually open-ended invitation to join.)

What makes shame so beautiful - the only way it can be beautiful - is when it is taken away. It brings much glory. Shame is not relieved when an action is undone or an atoning counter-action is made. Shame is removed when forgiveness arrives and the official, permanent record is torn into 1000 pieces and burned. This is freedom and oh, it tastes sweet.

I posted something four weeks ago ["an exerpt (3)"], cropped from and email, about the difference between guilt and conviction because I am a firm believer that you should not make moral decisions, act kindly to your brother, worship or evangelize out of guilt because you "know it is right." These things should be done out of something similar to love or selflessness. I enjoy making absolute statements (or more accurately, fine-tuning statements into absolution) and I also enjoy find exceptions to every/any rule. While sitting in my Physics class last week, I tried to think of something that would be rightly motivated by guilt. My instinct was to say "nothing" but that seemed far too trite. My conclsuion was that the only thing that should be motivated by guilt is grace. If you have received divine grace before, you will not let guilt sit for very long before you usher it out with some unconditional forgiveness (or at least you should not let it sit). But, if you have never experienced the "You know what? Forget the dents you put in my car, here's $5000 and a newer car" gift then understand: you will not find yourself trapped in self-loathing, self-pity and self-abuse longer than it takes to say, "God, wipe my slate clean."

I suppose that more guilt makes for more grace and more gratitude but that is a different story for another day.

siftingsorting (2)

Here is another something that needs to leave my desktop but this one is actually a word processor document from 29th October, 2005. I saved part of an instant messaging conversation with a friend because she dropped some sage on me that was too incredibly insightful that I needed to preserve it for later digestion. I suppose that makes me something like a cow, re-summoning her cud.

This is it, for all to enjoy...

Myself: [W]e get to a point where all patience is gone and all nerves are tread upon[.]
Her: [Y]es, quite true[.] [M]ethinks my chance to sleep last night ... took care of 1 type of physical need... but, during those times of "fighting exhaustion and still trying to be optimistic", you have a big guard up[.]
Myself: [Y]eh[.]
Her: [W]hen you give in to exhaustion, the guard's done and when the guard's down ..., you're exposed to all the things you haven't been dealing with but have been bouncing off[.]

[sister post: 25/01/06:)]

The 1950s

I am currently reading a book called "Scrubs on Skates" by Scott Young, published in 1952. I think this book is great for a few reasons I will here list.

-the illustrations involve straight-shouldered, tall, pristine hair-cut-ed boys who actually look like men
-the author's note explains how there are differences between the Canadian and American hockey rules (assumedly because the author follows the Canadian ones and some of his readership might follow the American)
-I found this book while researching for a music history class (E.T.A. Hoffman was both a musician/musical critic and an author)
-the language (reminiscent of American Graffiti where Ron Howard's character's big dis to the principal was, "Go kiss a duck!") is absurdly tame and makes me laugh (from our perspective, people in the 1950s seemed a bit repressed)

Here is the line that promped me to write about this book which is actually quite engaging and I have difficulty putting down:

"But Wong and Kryschuk, they were quiet kids, wouldn't say boo to a goose. . . ." (153; Little, Brown and Company, Boston)


I have endless appreciation for the 1950s (and '40s, '30s, etc. but '50s especially) because people had a good sense of propriety. I realize that there was much oppression for women and - in this country - non-Caucasian people in more subtle yet pervasive ways but, on the whole, I appreciate that people still had taste and modesty in terms of how they conducted themselves. I cannot complain that I am a victim of my society and I cannot claim that I am as wholesome as my mid-century predessors were.

Groundhog Day 2006

I cannot seem to locate the piece of paper on which I wrote a quotation from Tuesday night's Colbert Report, but it went something like this: "Are you the Jewish crouton on top?" It was hilarious in context but I think it works just fine without.

Last night (Wednesday), Colbert talked with Emily Yoffe of http://www.slate.com/ and he mocked her in a merciless manner, much like he does with most of his guests. When he introduced her, he said she worked for "Slate" and she corrected him by adding the "dot-com" part. He insisted, "So are you saying that if I go to a newstand to look for Slate..." and she interrupted with, "You won't find it there. It's on the Internet." After a beat, Colbert asks in the most serious & deliberate way, "When did Slate go out of business?" (ha ha ha)
Before he had actually introduced her, he opened his lunchbox (the workman's version, metal and all) and pulled out a 500mL carton of milk. [I think this entire episode was dedicated to the working man. He even pointed out his blue collar.] In a vague effort to explain his actions he said, "I hope you don't mind: I'm on my break." Ahh, so insulting, I love it. He struggled with the carton for a while, unable to open it and so he passes it to Yoffe who does the trick in about 5 seconds. He takes a drink and makes a big deal about how lovely it is. Then he declares, "Nothing is more refreshing after thirty minutes of talking than a dairy product."


Last week, Colbert's main guest was Nina Totenberg (a National Public Radio correspondent) and I have a few quotations from his conversation with her but I do not remember the context for any of them. [Before I share those, I must let you know that Colbert does not like bears and he says they are a threat to America.]
(1) "Sharing is caring. [beat] It's true because it rhymes."
(2) Colbert: I'm not a fan of men with beards.
Totenberg: You've never had a beard?
Colbert: I get kinda patchy. It comes in here [pointing to sideburns] then thins out [tracing jawline] and ends up all right here [indicating very central chin]. It has a sort of billy goat effect.
Totenberg: So you look kinda like a bear.
[Colbert reacted by staring at her (fighting a smile), and giving a bit of the evil eye as the audience "ooooooooh"-ed. It was a truly magical moment and I enjoyed it thoroughly.]
(3) Somewheres in this episode we hear about "Sir Phillip Garbagescowl".


This quotation is from his interview with the congressman of the state that he was honoring on that episode (name of place or man I do not recall). During these interviews (I have seen at least one other, perhaps two), he is as subversive and mildly insulting to congressmen as he is with studio guests but when he is with these politicians, he does not let on that he is joking around and there is no audience to laugh and show that such is the case. Generally, he will accuse people of accepting bribes or any kind of corruption and act dumb hearing their response, twisting their words, etc. This congressman in particular seemed a bit ticked off by Colbert's antics and when he was done he ended - in the perfect way, in my opinion - with this:
Colbert: Congressman [even tone, as if he is about to say, "Thanks for your time"], may I stroke your moustache?
[Congressman]: No.
Colbert: Can I comb it?
[Congressman]: [nods]
[Colbert pulls out a small plastic comb (like something you would use on a My Little Pony doll) and passes the bristles through the other man's facial hair a couple of times and then sits back (supremely satisfied) and thanks him for the interview.]


There are more Colb quotations to come but right now I need to sleep or something.

about to implode

Princess Jasmine says: "How dare you, all of you ... Standing around, deciding my future?! I am not a prize to be won!"

Voyez-vous les zombies, là
Les zombies et le lougaroue..


In the words of E-17:
Just when you think you've got what it takes to survive,
You see like you need someone else's advice.
You wait for the day, you constantly pray that it comes...
The day when you feel your life turn around just for once.


ggg
gg
ggg g g