something worth writing about

I'm catching more subtleties within The Chronicles of Narnia than I expected to but this one seems extra clev (and extra subtle):


"Silence, sir!" said Uncle Andrew, bringing his hand down on the table. "I will not be talked to like that by a little, dirty, schoolboy. You don't understand. I am the great scholar, the magician, the adept, who is doing the experiment. Of course I need subjects to do it on. Bless my soul, you'll be telling me next that I ought to have asked the guinea-pigs' permission before I used them! No great wisdom can be reached without sacrifice. But the idea of my going myself is ridiculous. It's like asking a general to fight as a common soldier. Supposing I got killed, what would become of my life's work?" (26)

---

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

Accordingly, it was not in spite of but because of His consciousness of his divine origin and destination, that He rose from supper, and assumed the dress and posture of a slave; for a servant in truth He was, being none other than the ideal Servant delineated in Isaiah's prophecy who was destined to 'pour out his soul unto death'. He laid aside his garments (4) even He was as to "lay aside" His life. He tied a slave's apron round Him, poured water into a basin, and proceeded to wash His disciples' feet and wipe them clean with the towel, the outward badge of His servitude.

Christ Jesus:

  Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
  rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.


The New International Version Study Bible. Ed. Kenneth L. Barker. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011. (John 13:3-5.)
Ibid. (Philippians 2:5b-7.)
Lewis, C.S. "The Magician's Nephew." The Chronicles of Narnia. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2002. Print. 26.
R. V. G. Tasker. Ed. "John". Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988. 155. Print.

what if (x3)

Could you tell me?

I'm not sure if I failed the week. I'm not sure if "the week" is actually over because it's Friday morning as I type but I'm headed back to the city I live in because of an unexpected meeting. 

Am I any more relaxed? Was that week any good? Will anything be different as I resume normal duties/activities next week? 

Where

  is

    that -- Sovereign Lord (my own Heavenly Father) who can give me the answer?

  -or comfort me until He does?

Maybe I can hazard that I'm not MORE stressed than I would have been, had I not taken time off. Maybe a couple days of sleeping in and "accomplishing" little was good for me. Maybe this kind of supposing isn't helping.

There were good parts. I suppose I regret little.

I think I finally hit it.

It's the middle of Thursday but I think I'm finally getting to the spot I wanted to get this week. A comfortable spot to work & play, a good (VERY GOOD) coffee, a hearty breakfast, and both wireless and a wall socket to let my laptop let me blog. Great. (It's a bit ironical that now what I feel like doing most is reading but that's OK.)


I got a really great email from my counsellor this morning. Her opening line was "Well, you still have a sense of humor which is always a good sign!" It made me happy, firstly because I didn't know she had a sense of humor. [Cheeky wink.] It's also happy that she was replying to my reply to her email whose subject line was "checking in". Since my weirdo pseudo-crisis a couple weeks ago she's been regularly emailing to see what kind of shape I'm in. I appreciate it greatly.

She gave me some advice and answered a question in a way I don't fully like but that I think is good. I'm happy to trust her professional opinion. I think she sidewaysly validated me. Yesterday a friend said, "you're not lazy," before piling up a few other premises to make her point... I instinctively laughed aloud at the first part because I felt like she was saying, "you don't have curly hair," in a very peculiarly matter-of-fact way. She sounded like it wasn't hard to deduce. She has no idea. I have enough idea not to start blogging that out right now. Second Chronicles is calling. Ha...I didn't realise how fab it is til just now that I'm reading both the Chronicles in the Old Testament and the Chronicles of Narnia this week.

:)


I shouldn't be so happy. I'm supposed to be having a crisis. I haven't had a meltdown since Saturday. Now the B-52s are playing in this coffee shop. What is my life?

Post-snowpocalyptic captains.

I'm killing time in the concourse of the TIFF Bell Lightbox building before my show at 9pm. I'll be glad for it, I think. Between air conditioning and the weather seeming to forget what month it is, I'll be glad to bring in a hot chocolate with me.

Today has been weird. Yesterday was weird. Sigh. God is good.

Weird things, hard things, and good things. I'm starting to think I have no idea what this week is about. I'm starting to become very scared I'll waste it. I won't get this much time off for months and months... Probably not til next summer. I'm starting to think it was unwise to schedule so many social interactions. I'm not sure if I need to dig or if I need to chill. Lord.... help a brother out.

I've spent a little time with the toddler... Enough to make my vision blur with liquid, enough to be tired out after 20 or 30 minutes in reflection and in a workbook I'm trying. I realised only about an hour ago that the goal of this week cannot be to fix all my problems. It cannot be. (I'm relieved.) But how to make it not for naught, I'm not sure.

(How do sailors measure distance, again?)

If nothing else, I want to get a better view. I want to see what has happened, what is happening, and what I need in the future. I want help. I want so much help. I want to figure out what I'm doing wrong and what I ought to be doing. 

The train ride was super fun. C.S. Lewis' work is nothing to sneeze at. I guess I did say (to myself) that the only "product" for this week should be to sharpen my saw. I'll have to work that one out. I'll have to seek God's direction. I could probably head up now.

I'm excited.

I'm excited. I'm "very enthusiastic and eager", says the New American Oxford Dictionary. 

I know, I know, I know... Not everything is smooth sailing... The week won't be perfect or painless but I'm still excited.

I'm going on vacation.

I'm going on vacation! I don't think I've ever done it. Yes--hitherto, I have travelled to see friends/family or to celebrate marriage ceremonies and then if I get to swim, buy postcards, not punch in at the office during those days, so be it. What's that called? A pseudo-vacation by default? By-product?

Doesn't matter.

This is different because I wanted it for ONLY a break. Only a break. Only not working, only doing what I enjoy and what I think is important. I should be saying "vocational" work because I do plan to give myself space to engage with heart things and memory things and hard things as they crop up. They crop up all the time and there's usually reason to tuck them away again.

But this week, if they come out big, I'll sit with them. And I'll have time/space to recover.

I'm so excited.

I have packed no fewer than nine books, two journals, and ten new pens.

I'M BORROWING A FRIEND'S LAPTOP SO I CAN BLOG LIKE A BOSS.

This week will be so good--yes, even with my ups and downs. Even with my down-down-downs. I expect them. Of course they will come. But I think I may be better able to weather them because there is NOTHING pressing to obligate me to sidestep or truncate or minimise. (A book I was reading earlier today likened trauma triggers to a screaming two-year-old in a playpen in the middle of your living room as you try to watch TV. The more you struggle to hear your programme and ignore the shrieks, the louder the child becomes, the more it needs your attention.) So... this week I can switch the telly off and I can attend to the toddler. I don't know what that poor kid needs but he's going hoarse.

Another reason to be excited? My first date with Mr Clive Staples. Yes, folks, you heard it here first. I've never read C.S. Lewis and I'm going to embark this week!

I thought that by the end of this post I'd be able to describe the happy-joy-peaceesque thing in me that wants this week so badly, but I haven't found the words yet. Maybe it is that my perfectionist work-til-you're-worth-something boss has finally relented. Maybe getting permission to take a vacation for the first time ever is getting close to admitting that I work hard. Maybe I work hard. Maybe I've worked hard enough for long enough that IT IS OK for me to take a break.

This is going to be weird. I haven't even left yet and already baggage is a-croppin'!

I'm taking the train in the morning. Not because I need to but because I enjoy train rides so, so much. I guess I should get to sleep.

:)

8)

8D

it's just before 8am

And I'm already ready to cry.
(If they made emoticons with watery smiles, I would type one here.)   :}

I got a break from the darkness for about a day-and-a-half that ended around 5pm yesterday. It didn't surprise me as it descended but it did suck.

I'm so angry.



I'm at work, making my way through a non-urgent but highly helpful task (one of my favorite kinds of task) and I have "God, please get me out of this" on repeat in the background. It's been on repeat since about 6pm yesterday. I feel stuck like I've never felt. I'm so angry... I'm going to be scared soon if I don't find moorings or sliver of light.


Last night I caught a glimpse of the seed that eventually makes people walk away from their faith. I'm sat on the floor half-crying, begging and begging and begging God to let me get it out, whatever this big, angry, intense, painful something is... PLEASE... let me get it out. And He didn't detonate the charge coiled around the bars of my prison door. He didn't do what I thought I needed. I could see how chronic pain or chronic confusion makes people want to turn their back on God, thinking He doesn't care, He doesn't see, He doesn't understand.

O Lord, don't let me be that guy.
Don't let me be that guy.


You are so good and I know it.


[Editor's note: In doing a brief review before posting, the fragment "Christ, who is your life," popped into my head as I wrote about moorings and needing a sliver of light. My original words were that I'm going to be scared if something doesn't give. I wrote that I didn't know what was wrong but that I needed help and it sounded too desperate and exaggerated and broken-record-ly. So I changed it to be more accurate to how I feel, despite sounding more poetic. As the image clicked, I heard that Scripture fragment and my friends at Bible Gateway provided the context. I typed it out below, and as I read/imbibed it, I felt my inner anger/tension drop from a 9 to a 7. As I type this editor's note, I can hear the steady hissing as the pressure continues to evacuate. Thanks be to God. Good Word. There is hope.]

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your heart on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden in Christ with God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4)

There is hope!

John, I think I understand you.

I don't understand you as well as I'd like to and I don't understand you as well as I will in the future, Lord willing, but sometimes I get you.

Every now and then, while organising the lyrics slides for our corporate worship, I feel strongly compelled to alter the composer's original punctuation. This afternoon I was reviewing these words:

And so with thankfulness and faith we rise
to respond and to remember
our call to follow in the steps of Christ
as His body here on earth.
As we share in His suffering
we proclaim Christ will come again
and we'll join in the feast of Heav'n
around the table of the King. 

And it seemed almost morally wrong to keep an exclamation point from the sixth line. Sometimes Biblical authors (like John) appear to have added their exclamation points from the gut because they're minding their own business writing a letter when they're mercilessly ambushed by worship!

How can you know life's most profound thankfulness, how can you have faith in Christ, how can you be able to rise and respond and remember the great privilege and joy it is to operate as His body here on earth...

How can you share in His suffering (a great privilege and joy), how can you know that these light and momentary troubles are achieving an eternal glory that far outweighs them all, how can you know that your present suffering is not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us...

and then PROCLAIM that Christ, the Messiah, the Lamb, the Conquering King, the only one Who is Good, will--come--again...

and NOT use that little line-and-dot etching that signifies "intensity of emotion, loudness, etc."??

!!

How?!


AND... we'll join in the feast of Heaven around the table of the King.


Selah and amen!

A Note on Regal Dining.

re: "the feast of Heaven around the table of the King"

When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor.

David said, "Mephibosheth!"

"At your service," he replied.

"Don't be afraid," David said to him, "for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table."

Mephibosheth bowed down and said, "What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?"

Then the king summoned Ziba, Saul's steward, and said to him, "I have given your master's grandson everything that belonged to Saul and his family. You and your sons and your servants are to farm the land for him and bring in the crops, so that your master's grandson may be provided for. And Mephibosheth, grandson of your master, will always eat at my table." (Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.)

Then Ziba said to the king, "Your servant will do whatever my lord the king commands his servants to do." So Mephibosheth ate at David's table like one of the king's sons.

Mephibosheth had a young son named Mika, and all the members of Ziba's household were servants of Mephibosheth. And Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, because he always ate at the king's table; he was lame in both feet.


  Selah.

    Amen.

! ! !

Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty, Stuart Townend. "Behold the Lamb (Communion Hymn)". Awaken the Dawn. Thankyou Music, 2009.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exclamation+point?s=t
The New International Version Study Bible. Ed. Kenneth L. Barker. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011. (II Samuel 9:6-13).

God has been so kind to me.

God has been so kind to me!


Every time I have limited capacity for my customer service job, He gives me the lightest workload. I came in for 7.30 to discover that the first client isn't due til 8. (Meaning: quietness abounds.) They will be the only client til 9. (Meaning: An opportunity to eat breakfast slowly and half-watch television.) There is only one provider working today until the end of my shift. (Meaning: it is almost impossible for me to get overwhelmed with people. Often there are three providers working at once and their clients come in every fifteen minutes. Picture it!)

When I'm able to keep up with high traffic, I love it. I find it energising. Today I am physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually tired. Last night was surreal and difficult, my umpteenth hospital visit this year, and the future looks strugglesome. But I'm going to do my best and I'm going to persistent-widow the Lord to give me strength and joy.


Tell me all about Him. He's so good.

It was an oddly still moment, watching those familiar hands do up the last two buttons down the shirt front.

Weekday mornings are usually rushed (aren't they supposed to be rushed?) and yet this was a moment of true uni-tasking. I watched those hands uni-task the shirt closed right to the bottom and then realised with some surprise that all I was doing was watch the hands get the little pearl buttons through their holes.

There was no concurrent activity, either physical or mental, as there always is to tighten up morning prep time.

The shirt was fully closed and then the hands dropped down to resting position.


I stopped and said to myself, "I know those hands..." and I stood still as they seemed utterly familiar yet new.

Then--That's her. That's what she looks like.

That's me. Those are my trousers. That is my shirt. I'm tanned this summer. The shirt complements my complexion more now than it did in April.

That's me. That's the majority of my abdomen reflected in the mirror from the counter-top to the bottom of the steam cloud.


I look up, expecting to see some of my face where the steam has cleared but it's too soon for that. My face, the top of my body to the middle of my rib cage, is completely obscured. It's completely obscured.


It's hidden by this fog that should clear soon enough.


I recognise the parts I see; I wish I could see the whole thing. (Is the metaphor becoming obvious now?)
It was perfect. It brought a twinge of frustration but I thought the visual expression was too profound and poignant to not be a little neat (and somehow, sidewaysly encouraging).

I just finished making labels for file folders holding two newer songs we've added to the repertoire here. "Raised to Life" and "Christ is Risen".

When I wrote the second label, my language-brain noticed the repeated word (or repeated roots of a word) and my abstract-concept-brain pulled up the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It hit me in a moment that this event is so big a deal that more songs have been written about it than any other event in the history of time. No... that's what I cashed out as I came to blog. What hit me in the moment is, "this must be a big deal."

It must be a big deal that in 2013 and 2009 respectively, North Americans are writing about the Son of God's miraculous, inconceivable conquering of death--which transpired two millennia before their time--and being raised to life forever more. (I won't even get started on what that means for those who are united with Him...)


A big deal if there ever was one!

The biggest deal!

!!

I'm fine. "I'm fine."

The list of people who have said I can call if I need to talk is pretty long. It's something I thank God for. It's an amazing thing to have friends.


The list of people I do call when I want to talk is much shorter. Actually it's a list of one. And I don't always make it to dialling.



So what do I do now, crying about a traumatic event from my past that I honestly thought I had dealt with better than this? Today it feels fresh. Secondary events feel freshly devastating, too. This is why people cut their wrists. I understand those people. We want out. Overwhelmed by exactly how your life is--where can escape be? It's hard to talk when it seems like reality is shoved down your throat, gagging. This blog post is the same cry for help as the cutting of wrists or abnormal piercings or dramatic haircuts. This is the fifth time in eight days that I've been moved to tears. It is tiring. Now I'll feel like a zombie for a little while.

I'll stay alone until I can cover up what's happened, like I've just experienced incontinence or something. Then I'll re-integrate and find something lighter to talk about.



---


And because I can't leave it this way and this verse popped to mind, here's something else that's inescapable:

Where can I go from your Spirit?
  Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
  if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
  if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
  your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
  and the light become night around me,"
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
  the night will shine like the day,
  for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;
  you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
  your works are wonderful,
  I know that full well.

Psalm 139:7-14


---

Hmm. That verse didn't "pop" to mind at all. No... that was the Lord finding me when I can't lift my head up. What a Guy.

Self-Portrait: Tuesday, 17 June, 2014

how neat.

I forgot how much I enjoy libraries. I mistakenly turned up an hour early for work this afternoon and part of my time-killing efforts went to looking for a book. I found two that seemed like they'd at least make a good start to research.

At the check-out I was told that on this Fines Amnesty Day, my oustanding $7.50 could be waived if I borrowed seven items. I goggled a bit, asked for clarification, and then went flitting about the main floor to throw my You Don't Need Any More Books switch into the "off" position. (Every time I walk through Chapters, a cage descends over that switch and an alligator-riddled moat appears.)

It squeaked and groaned and I had some thick cobwebs to clear but soon enough I was "off" and browsing for whatever I wanted. It was free! What a gem of a sliver of my day which was otherwise hip-wading through wet cornstarch.

Books on topics I'm sure I'll enjoy; books on topics I want to learn about so I can engage my culture/unconverted friends, family, strangers; a book that I grab because it's small and I'm running out of arm space but it turns out to be a Jesus book (woo!); and the most indulgent of all, a book in my secretly most favorite but sadly least accessed genre, mystery.

I started reading on my way home one of the two I had planned to borrow and I'm thanking God for how un-terrible it is so far. I'm still largely undecided and cautious, but I'm truly grateful that so far it's pretty good.

Little things

  good things

scraps

I once was lost in darkest night yet thought I knew the way.
The sin that promised joy and life had led me to the grave.

.

  .

    .

Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
  Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
my enemy will say, "I have overcome him,"
  and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

.
  .
    .

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
  and the light become night around me,"
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
  the night will shine like the day,
  for darkness is as light to you.

.

  .

    .

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not;
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

.

  .

    .

Light of the world, You came down into darkness,
opened my eyes, let me see.
Beauty that made this heart adore You,
hope of a life spent with You.

.

  .

    .


Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

.
  .
    .

Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee, God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee, Opening to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness, Drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness, Fill us with the light of day.

     .   .   .

Kauflin, Jordan. "All I Have is Christ." Sovereign Grace Praise, 2008.
The New International Version Bible. Ed. Kenneth L. Barker. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011. (Psalm 13:3-4)
Ibid. (Psalm 139:11-12)
Chisholm, Thomas Obadiah. "Great is Thy faithfulness." Hope Publishing Company, 1951.
Hughes, Tim. "Here I Am to Worship." Thankyou Music, 2000.
Byrne, Mary E. (Trans.), Eleanor H. Hull (Arr.) "Be Thou My Vision." Public Domain.
Van Dyke, Henry. "Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee." Public Domain.

I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to keep laboring for my King. I don't know this magical, mystical process of putting one foot in front of the other.

Right now I know that there's a sharp pain over my right eye and my temples are beginning to throb. It's a side-effect of the pill I took to help me avoid having stressful dreams which come just about every night, a side-effect of another pill I'm taking.

Right now 95% of my material possessions are packed up in boxes and crates, ready to laugh at a team of us as we throw out our backs and curse staircases tomorrow.

Right now I wish I didn't have this week. I wish I didn't have this weekend. I wish I could get through it and I wish I was OK.

I wish I could see the Lord--and I wish I saw Him as some sort of guide in these choppy waters. 

[graphic description of a brutal prison cell]

And here I sit. I can't open the door and I can't open the door. I can't pick the lock or fool the guard and I can't get up from my cot. I'm sitting awkardly still, like I see the hunter stalking deer and I don't know how much his trigger finger itches.

I'm barely breathing; I'm still. My brain is also frozen, perplexed by the conflicting data. I feel rigid and vacant as I sit, but at the same time I'm watching my body get up and push the door open over and over.