Desert Miners

Something deep is being dug up and what guilt and shame would label whining

grace is renaming as mining. The desert years searched and sifted

scorched earth burning away until what is lifted and remaining

is a self that never left,

but was hidden, like that little girl in the closet

plugging ears and singing songs to shut out the fears that never drifted away,

that shifted to stay.

These are the new days not fresh and unstained but believing

that what remains is hope. Like coffee circles on the table top they loop

around the heart and head to declare the things we have seen

will not be made unseen, but the stains don't make us unclean.

We are those that survived and figured ourselves the survivor

without seeing that we have a revivor.

Emptiness was the lied assumption of what was left but one revived is filled full of breath.

We've called out for shade, for rest, gasped for air, screeched its unfair,

torn into this dessert dust filled with bones. Our bones, worn marrow splintered with new breath.

We're the living remnant, and though we've seen death

its cold socket eyes can not steal whats left

because its new and its shared and its proof of the fallen

taking steps on new feet that have been call'n to walk and tell the stories

And they'll be pain and they'll be laughter. Truth is no stranger to disaster.

And we'll make more miners in the desert

finding breath in their bones

mining flesh out of stones.

The desert, again

I am not exactly sure how I ended up here again but: "tada" I am sitting once again, albeit cross legged, in the desert. But this time it doesn't feel profound like the Montana dance tour that was a cracked wasteland inches from soul quenching rains. Or the Lenten sands that felt noble and liturgically endowed with poetry. Nope this feels dry, and gritty. And I want some shade... seriously anytime little fig tree.

A Fish in the Pond

Sunday mornings for me are sacred. I attend a church service in the evenings, but the mornings are my true sabbath. I sleep in, fiddle around in my kitchen usually producing some new variation of scone (this morning is was apricot ginger) to go with my coffee, and then load up my book bag for a trip to the park. It is my liturgy of rest.
My park, which yes I have come to feel a sense of ownership over, is a lush grouping of willows, maples and birches surrounding a small lake that by any other name is really a glorified pond. I situate myself on a bench on a little dock that is almost hidden by bulrushes and breathe. Peace becomes a tangible substance, it fills my nostrils and dances across my skin like the breeze that skitters across the back of my neck. I am content with my book, my scone, and my coffee.
But the dock is not as hidden as I thought and soon I am joined by a small herd of children followed shortly by their shepherding parents: a father who turns to me apologetically while the mother focuses on gripping the waistband of a toddler who seems determined to plunge head first off the dock in pursuit of a duck. A dog appears,a warm old golden retriever, than 2 more little lap dogs with bulging eye balls. Their owners arrive, a pair of typical middle aged east van hippies, the type who now have the money to afford shopping at expensive organic stores but still insist on wearing clothes from their teenaged wardrobes. My little dock has begun to feel like a 10' by 10' microcosm: ducks, dogs, hippies, and children darting around in choreographed precision. I feel separate, as though I am the invisible narrator allowed to paint them unto a canvas they are ignorant of. As quickly as they came they all walk away down the weathered boards and back unto the trail to join the buzz of the park.
I return back to my book, I think about God and faith and family. I sip my coffee and make a note to buy gum.
Then my second wave of visitors arrive, a boy and his father. They are quiet. They do not announce or apologize for their arrival, we simply acknowledge each other, a quick glance and acceptance of one anothers presence. The boy unravels a fishing line and props up a zip lock bag filled with God-knows-what kind of brown squirming bait. The father drifts back observing his child from a distance, finding his own sacredity in the grey skys of this Sunday morning. I read, the father breathes, and the boy fishes. We are a silent happy trio.
I hear water splashing and look to see something moving in the plastic container next to my little fisherman. I ask him if I can look, somewhat shyly he lets me squat next to him and see his 3 tiny fish splashing around. I am shocked both by their shining brilliance gasping in the shallow bowl, and by the fact that he actually caught anything. I ask him what he will do with them -- half afraid he intends on frying up these 3 inch creatures and ingesting their pond scum-- but no he will release them. I want to keep chatting, or ask to fish with him, but I return to my bench and my book.
The baseball diamond in the back corner of the park has a new sound system which the little league has decided to use to blare beach boys tunes, when it switches to a vibrato laced 'O Canada' by some aspiring local I know it is time to leave. I abandon my fisherman and his father, I feel like I should say goodbye or wish him luck but I don't. I walk past the 8 year baseball players, the gathering of taiko drummers, a little girl just learning to ride her bike, willows,birches,maples, back to my home.
Sometimes I wonder if being an artist means I will get crazier the more I hone my craft. That I will see more of what others ignore and care less about what they do. For instance I went to the park today in my Uggs, in June, because I knew the warmer my feet were the longer I would stay. My face is naked from make-up and wisps of my hair refuse to stay in my half-hearted braid.
Perhaps I am already the crazy artist. I think I am okay with that.

This Storm Borne Frailty

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!You cataracts and hurricanes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!(King Lear 3.2.1)

The rains, as you might have guessed, have continued. The storms that come , now have the cutting edge of colds winds that send the pelting rain in gravity defying directions. When I parked my little car outside of the studio for Shakespeare class last night I was half afraid it swim away on me. Oh but how delicious it is to have Shakespeare and storms together. The night begged for one of us actors to go screech Lear's soliqueys into the roaring storm...none of us did of course, we would've gotten wet, ugh. But the drama of the storm, even when safely indoors, rages on inside me.

I, perhaps sixty years too early, have gone walking in the storm. I have those deep emotional cracks and rages of Lear's storm blowing at me with a force that has torn aside pre-exsisting foundations and confidences. I feel half wild, ready to tear at my clothing and run headlong into the very storms I have spent my life avoiding. I feel dangerous and released...but then I put on my dress shoes and head off to my 9-5.

This is my conflict.

I am quietly raging unsure of at what, or whom, but walking edges of cliffs - silently. My silence comes from the other side of my storm, the warm air, that reminds me to nurture and love, to cling to the responsibility and leadership that I have walked in my whole life. And all of this feels unnoticed -- the glory of acting Shakespeare is that when a character feels something, we see it, we hear it, it is the external and heightened representation of our internal swirling chaos's. While we may think of doing something, these characters do it, they scream, they murder, they betray, they fuck...and occasionally make love. Its raw, its visceral, its the storm inside us.

In the end Lear has walked in the storm, ultimately, to face himself -- "Who is it that can tell me who I am?" (1.4.230), he sees betrayals, loyalties, sorrows, and himself. Now I am not saying my coming of age crisis's is the equivalent of this tragic blind dying man, clutching his dead daughter in his arms, while he howls into the night; er at least lets hope not.

But this passion, this intensity, the high stakes is a storm I -- well none of us-- can avoid. One only hopes that enlightenment and not destruction comes from our journey into night. But, that the pelting pitiless rains expose more than madness allowing us to walk on into morning.

Bitten

"Because grieving is drowning -- suspended"
Death is a scar that marks us all. We wear it on our hearts; hidden by layers of blood vessels and tissue, it lies on our central organ a memento mori. Death and life seperated by inhalations, as cells are reborn and depleted in the steady rise and fall of our breath.
I have two peers who are currently in the midst of grieving. One just lost his mother to a slow battle with terminal lung disease and the other is currently living with his dying mother-in-law. Their grief is so loud it beats in their ears with the same thrumming pulse a child about to be discovered in hide and seek feels.
I don't understand death. Like my peers I have also known it intimately and tragically...but I still don't understand it. The death I have seen lacks the dignity and peace Sunday School painted it to be. Its visceral, desperate, and cruel. It leaves a web half woven and the survivors crawl about trying to patch a pattern they do not have the instructions for.
The scar is not just on our hearts. Creation itself is cracked; each blade of grass flitting in the wind, the rough grains of sand that rub each other raw, and the waters that strain against the shores, feel death. The immortal rendered mortal does not simply forget its heritage.
For once upon a time there was a boy and a girl. And they played where they should not have, and ate what was not theirs, and a pain filled their chests and they were changed. And we were changed. And it all changed.
I too have a thrumming pulse in my head. Grief that screams at me above the crowded noise. My chest heaves in a pain that feels like it could rip me in two. I feel the scar. A rough scar with two perfect punctures. For once upon a time a snake coiled up around us and slithered things in our ears and as we listened it slyly sunk its fangs into our chests, and we were changed.

Lent

Because I Do Not Hope to Know
Because I do not hope to know
The season of Lent has become, for me, a season of acceptance. A time when my strivings, insecurities, and vanities, are exposed like carcasses in the wasteland, and I simply am. Lent is the desert. Lent is waiting. Lent is letting go.
I am a latecomer to liturgy. My Pentecostal upbringing,while rife with memory verses and songs that utilized the word “hosanna”, taught me nothing of the liturgical
practices of the Christian faith. So, when at university I became aware of the rich history of the church, I was fascinated. The ability to integrate the relational and often emotion-based faith of my childhood with an intellectual and academically oriented church tradition was incredibly liberating. Liturgy in an age of experience-based faith felt wild, even rebellious. Some kids do drugs; I read Christifedelis
Laici.
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
It was in this period that I first experienced Lent. I vowed to write in my journal every day, commit to disciplined devotions, and I expected, like some crazed Essene in the desert, to be blown away by daily if not hourly revelations of God. It didn’t work out too well – I, in my normal “Striving McStriverson” way gave myself rules in achieving closeness with God. I found instead a sense of isolation and distance.
I had created an image of God that matched my own limitations, and in that control was blinded.Lent is letting go. Lent is waiting. Lent is the desert.
A couple of years ago I decided to go to Christ Church Cathedral downtown for the Ash Wednesday sunrise service. I had just moved to the city, was pretty much jobless, and the beginning of Lent seemed to offer hope that change was coming. But on the way to the church I got completely lost in Vancouver traffic, rather upset at my new roommate (who was trying to “un-lost” us via Google directions), and missed
the entire service.Lent is waiting. Lent is the desert. Lent is letting go – and not flipping off the guy who just cut you off in the Cathedral parking lot.
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Shall these bones live?
Shall these bones live?
That same year I got the chance to take a road trip to a four star hotel built into the Monterey Bay in California.It was a week filled with stillness and rest. One night while I doing my devotions on the balcony of my hotel room, I felt calmness consume me. In the midst of the unknown, alongside the uncertainty of where life was headed I felt a penetrating peace. The constant buzzing of my brain slowed and I sat listening in the darkness to the crashing of the waves below. I heard a pod of whales sounding off to each other across the ocean bay. To me at that moment, it was
the sound of hope, of the eternal, the sound of letting go.
Lord I am not Worthy,
Lord I am not Worthy,
But speak the word only
Last year I managed to make it on time to the Cathedral for the imposition of ashes. The priest smeared the oily charcoal of burnt palm fronds in a cross on my forehead, and quietly repeated, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” For me the black smear on my forehead (which was hilariously perceived as dirt and continually attempted to be rubbed off all day by the dancers I worked with) was a reminder, not that I was different – but that I was the same.It was a reminder that I come from dust, and that I will return to it. That in that same dust-derived form Christ came, roamed the desert and lived, walked amongst us and loved, and stretched out his arms and died. In Lent we wait,we wait for the celebration of the incarnation -- of dust
bearing life. Lent is accepting the finite. Lent is admitting I don’t know. Lent is letting go.


Elliot, Thomas Stearn. Ash Wednesday http://www.msgr.ca/msgr-7/ash_wednesday_t_s_eliot.htm

God's Flash Photography

"Its silent just the crickets and my breathing,
and the God above is practicing his flash photography."-Sheree Plett

I have always been awed by lighting storms. They illuminate the opaque black night instantaneously, sheet lightening revealing the grass swaying in the fields and outlining the naked branches of trees like children caught in a game of hide and seek.

Like these lightening storms of exposure, the weight of emotion hits me unexpectedly. Moments where light captures me, reaches me, and reveals all I am for a moment. It is as though my numb exterior is uncovered for an instant and I feel everything. I feel exposed, broken, and weak. A child running from shadows.

The art of feeling I believe takes practices…
and I am out of practice.

Much of how I understand God, is based in what I feel -- and as one prone to numbness, this makes God seem as elusive at times as the morning fog. Much of life passes around me unfelt, like a stream past a boulder. I am solid and unmoving.

Until, God practices his flash photography in my life. In those brief glimpses I experience life to all its extremes, emotions without the corners cut. Reflected in the negative is a split second of seeing myself, of seeing God, of feeling the unfelt storms of my past.

I feel. I feel. I feel.

And God, not elusive but constant, is the one with the flash bulb chasing the shadows into the night.

Montana Tour Day Three,Four and Five

Kamloops, the city we are rehearsing in, is one of the only places in Canada to be classified as a "desert". The land is jutting and exposed, layers of brown with only the occasional manicured green lawn for reprieve. It is so dry here that M.'s eyes are going red with her contacts in, all of our skin seems to be drinking up the moisturizer we put on it, and even the ground itself seems to crack open.
I have become a bit of a semi-arid desert myself of late. Rehearsals are HARD, physically exhausting and technically demanding. Its hard to present a confidant front when each hour seems to break down your self-esteem and each criticism drain your last bit of energy. My carefully presented surface is cracking under stress and exhaustion.
Because all of the company is living together while we are on tour it is impossible to hide anything. I do not like to show weakness, especially here, as I already feel like the underdog in this group -- having far less dance training and ability. I am spent...completely. And it doesn't help that this city is teeming with painful memories from my past. The girls noticed and M . and A. tried to give me a hug, I refused. Sometimes I feel like love is like water in a desert. It is exactly what I need, but even one drop will bring the whole pillar of sand crumbling down, leaving me a muddy mess.
It is difficult for me to accept love...I have always felt that isolating myself, and surviving on my own is safer. If my ability to be whole does not relie on anyone else then no one can disappoint me. But the truth is I have -like all humans- always craved love. I have longed for people who would break through my tough front and love me. Seeing this wall cracking down, around near strangers no less, is incredibly painful. Painful but also healing --when I finally allowed myself to cry in front of the women in the dance company it was a relief. I was bare and exposed and it was wonderful.
The desert seems harsh at first, the rocks and dirt a rough replacement for the greenery of home...but I am learning that it can be beautiful. When the sun sets here the pinks of the sky intermingle with the orange browns of the ground swirling me into the landscape...like a comforting embrace.
The time for refusing love has come to an end.

Montana Tour Day Three,Four, and Five

Kamloops, the city we are rehearsing in, is one of the only places in Canada to be classified as "desert". The land is jutting and exposed, layers of brown with only the occasional manicured green lawn for reprief. It is so dry here that M.'s eyes are going red with her contacts in, all of our skin seems to be drinking up the moisturizer we put on it, and even the ground itself seems to crack open.

I have become a bit of a semi-aried desert myself of late. Rehersals are HARD, physically exhausting and technically demanding, we all struggle to retain the dances we are learning. Its hard to present a confidant front when each hour seems to break down your self-esteem. My carefully presented surface is cracking under stress,exhaustion, and critique. Because all of the company is living together while we are on tour it is impossible to hide anything. I do not like to show weakness, especially here, as I already feel like the underdog in this group -- having far less dance training and ability. But I have not been able to hide.I am spent...completely. The girls noticed and M tried to give me a hug, I refused. Sometimes I feel like love is like water in a desert. It exactly what I need, but even one drop with bring the whole pillar of sand crumbling down, leaving me a muddy mess.

The girls allowed me more time and I crumbled all on my own. You see my father died in Kamloops 2 years ago. I avoid coming here because of that. To make matters worse the hospice he died in is literally a block from where all of us are staying - I drive by it every day on the way to rehearsal. Very few people know much of this part of my life and sharing it with the dancers I thought would leave me powerless.

It didn't.

Crying with them was a relief. I was bare and exposed and it was wonderful. The desert seems harsh at first, the rocks and dirt a rough replacement for the greenery of home...but I am learning that it can be beautiful. When the sun sets here it is amazing the pinks of the sky with the orange brown of the ground makes you feel swirled into the landscape...like a hug. The time for refusing love has come to an end.

Montana Tour Day One and Two

“To set spirit free from stone” – Alison Wearing

I love this quote. A sculptor wrote it and it speaks to me of what I want my art to be -- of what I want my life to be, my art setting free the broken through the love of God.

Nerves, hesitancy, and excitement all intermingled yesterday as I drove to meet the other 3 women in the dance company I am now a part of. The 4 of us come from all over North America and have, without ever meeting each other (and some with out even meeting the company director or her us, since auditions were by DVD) decided to commit the next 4 months of our lives to tour a brand new production about poverty, the oppressed, and human suffering. The show is a multimedia production that will tours across America, Canada, and Belize raising fund for social justice non-profit-organizations at home and abroad.

Aw doesn’t that sound ever so artistically wonderful and lofty?
– enter reality stage right.

Yesterday after 2 of the girls flew from the east coast (one with her teething one year old baby) we all packed into an incredibly tiny hatchback and headed off for the interior of BC where we would be rehearsing. Ok now when I say `packed in` I mean PACKED IN, every inch of the car was covered in our luggage, dance wear, purses, oh and of course a stroller and car seat. Exhausted we arrived right before midnight at the house we would be staying at. A house that has no hot water, only 1 bed (a single at that), and -as of this moment- no toilet paper, somehow the shows themes have seeped into our lives…(okay I am exaggerating, after all real poverty is not the absence of sheets and hair blow dryers).

The work is inspiring, the rehearsals physically exhausting, and the potential of what lies ahead in the tour brings goose bumps to my arms. I am discovering one cold shower at a time that I am not quite the self sacrificing humanitarian that I supposed – and one sore muscle at a time am discovering my humanity. Apparently setting spirit free from stone requires a little more chiselling than I knew.

Stay tuned…

Desire and Naseau (with a lot of unrelated bracketed thoughts)

I haven't been able to eat much lately, which I have to say is very annoying as it is one of my favorite things to do. Instead about 10min into a meal I become overwhelmingly nauseous. Its a result of a concussion I got from being on the losing end of a hit and run; an accident that wonderfully did not injure my cute little smart car, but frustratingly did send a lot of impact to my head and neck.

The odd thing is, even though I know that delving into a meal will make me feel ill, that pushing myself will bring on headaches, and that dancing all day can cause me to almost blackout - I keep doing them all. What is that about?!

I suppose that is the nature of desire, whether it be the desire to succeed, to express, or in the simplest form - to eat, it is so all consuming that the consequence is outweighed by the longing.

I usually think of desire as an associate of sin. After all the quintessential "apple" in the Garden of Eden was all about desire and that brought a hell of a lot more than nausea with it.

But lets take a moment to reclaim the word (because nothing is more enjoyable than reading a blog about reclaimed words...you are welcome). Desire is a symptom emotion after all, not distinctively good or bad -- I mean it shows a need. Ie. My need for nourishment makes me desire food, my need to create makes me desire to dance, my need for external affirmation makes me desire to push myself incessantly to accomplish more and more and more...(OK lets not delve into that last one...) So really desire --while it rings with the tone of temptress-- is really just need.

But then again so is nausea. Its my body saying "I need rest you crazy dancing fool" (my body apparently talks to me like a sarcastic rapper). Sadly nausea is just not very convincing. It is the wimp in the boxing ring slapping instead of punching. It takes from the future while desire is so wonderfully in the now. The present need seems like such an easy choice.

How can desire not win? I think I am going to go eat now -- ha .

*Please note this silly blog should be in no way applied as actual moral truths. Er the present desire not always such a swell idea (doing such could result in addiction, illness, or pregnancy).

**Also please note that 24 years in the Church has taught me that the 'apple' in the garden was not actually an apple...it was only for literary purposes that I suggested it. I promise. I have not gone heretical on you all.

***At least I don't think I am heretical hmmm...

The weight of bread,cheese, and chocolate

I have just returned home from work, hours later than usual and burdened with a paper bag of groceries. The three items in the bag: a sausage roll, a block of aged cheddar, and a couple of Italian chocolates -- are as close as I could get to the staples of basic nourishment. I did not buy them for myself and they stare up at me like leftover Eucharist host, spirit filled but purposeless. I, somewhat guiltily, heat up the sausage roll for my supper and try to ignore the abandoned cheese and chocolates in their bag on the dining room table. Who knew dairy products could be so convicting?


This was not how I saw my evening panning out.

It all started when a shard of glass got lodged in my tire this morning on the way to work. By 4pm my tire was as flat as a botched boob job. So, annoyed, but excited to use my smart-car 12inch electric air compressor, I blew the tire back up and drove to the nearest Kal-tire. An hour later I was back on the road with a patched tire and -surprisingly- no bill (oh the perks of being young and female in an automotive shop).
As per usual I got lost when I tried to find a new route home and ended up stuck at a light going the wrong way up Terminal Ave. As a young man begging approached my car I did the usual locked-door-windows-up-avert-eyes routine; but as he paced with his hand drawn sign "Travelling, broke, hungry...anything helps" my eyes misted over. God loves this boy, this boy that can't be much older than my little brother, who was covered in scrapes and sores -- marks of travelling a path that no one had cleared for him. I realized I did have fifteen dollars in my purse but I was in conflict, wasn't it bad to encourage 'these people' with money, what if he threatened me, what if...?

The light changed and I drove away leaving his hollow face behind. And as my free tire gripped the road Christ gripped my heart "I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was naked and you
didn't give me clothes..." The grossness of my fear and prejudice slapped me in the face - there is no such thing as "those people" there are all His creation, His people. I changed my route again and headed to the Italian bakery down the road.

If you know me, or have even read my few posts you will notice I am a girl accustomed to fear. I am not taken by fits of passion or bravery -- at least, on my own I'm not. But in this moment I felt I could walk through fire, the courage of God surpasses my understanding! So I walked into the shop and got chocolates and cheese, and a sausage roll at the shop next door. I was freed knowing this money was not mine, not really, and found myself tipping the cashier. When I walked back onto the street a man begged for 70 cents and instead of turning away I gave him all I had. I drove back to the stop light thinking of how I would offer the food; but the boy had left, I searched the streets looking around the intersection, but he had moved on...a hungry traveller still.

I looked around the streets as I drove home, trying to see someone who could benefit from the food. And what I saw amazed me, for the first time I really saw the people who lived in East Van. Many hungry travellers in their own way -- some lost, some searching, and all hungry. Somehow my bread and cheese felt heavy. The need was big and my offering too small. Disappointed I pulled up to my house, and brought the food into the house with me.

Somewhere a boy is hungry and alone while I am full.
Thirsty and I am satisfied-
Naked and I am clothed.

Lord Jesus have mercy
have mercy on us all.

Amen

Of clouds in climbless skies...

The polka-dot emblazoned woman sitting beside me, who i would guess was in her late fifties, groggily asked "are those mountains we are flying over now?" Apparently her eyesight was a couple decades older than she was. We were flying over the Pacific Ocean as we had been 95% of our flight from Vancouver to honolulu. The shapes out our plane window, which she had mistaken for mountains ,were a glorious blanket of clouds ranging from gossamer thinness to thick pillow top comfoters. The vastness of this "skyscape" blew my mind as I saw the fingerprints of God's hands swirled in the never-ending fushia and tangerine coloured horizon. I was in utter peace.
Not that my trip started so serenely. Flying stand-by is apparently much like gambling. You really don't know until minutes before the flight whether or not you'll get on (ohh thats why they call it stand-by...). Once my friend who had dropped me off at the airport left, full on panic set in. I did not feel like sleeping at YVR, I needed to get to this wedding in Hawaii as cheaply as possible, and every westjet airline attendant I spoke with readily listed the many factors standing in the way of my ticket. All things which were annoyingly out of my control.

I felt God asking me to trust him which caused the following 2 hour long internal arguement:
What if I trust him to get me on this flight and it falls through, then I will need to come up with the reason why he actually meant for me to not get on. Oh but I really want to fly out tonight! But maybe that's not what he wants, maybe this is selfish of me. Maybe I am only supposed to go for a couple of days so he'll make me miss this flight for the later one in the week. Or perhaps this is to teach me how to deal with the difficulties of travel so I am more equipped when he calls me as a missionary to Timbuktu where I will probably die as a martyr...or maybe this flight is going down and that's why I shouldn't push my ticket through or I'll end up dead floating face down in the ocean, my body swollen with salt water and little carnivorous fish feeding on my...
That's the jest of it without going any further into the creative morbidity of my brain.

Then my name was called and I boarded the plane.

This made me realize that I am often trying to outsmart God -- well perhaps not God as much as
much as my faith. I worry that if i can't figure out the big picture and I choose to trust God anyway, I will be let down. My faith will prove ungrounded. My provision and protection will not be there and I will be alone. And I desperately do not want that. Blame it on abadonment issues but i have a fear of God letting me down and me having nothing left to believe in. So I don't ask God to prove himself to me, I make sure he doesn't have to so that I can have a strong belief in his divinity...just not his relationally. Instead I prove myself to him (yes I realize now that God must find that pretty funny).

The plane landed safe and sound in Honolulu 20 minutes ahead of schedule. I was neither saline filled, or stranded. The flight apparently hand not been God's harsh blow of discipline or a painful didactic lesson. Instead, staring out from my window seat at the beauty of the elements spun together in the starry night sky, there was peace. For a moment the anxiety that whimpers its lies in my head was silenced by an overwhelming feeling that I was loved. That God was powerful. That it didn't matter if I was floating my way to hawaii balancing on the surface of a single wine cork, God's plan and majesty are so far beyond me I may as well take a breath, and learn to trust because this ride ain't over yet. And the clouds? ...they are only the beginning.

On Choking (and other issues pertaining to breathing)

Choking is my call to community. Its not odd when you think about it, really, I mean it is the wake up call to the one-man islands, to the cocky singles, to the isolated hermits: we are not enough on our own.

I was just outside soaking in the sun on a lazy summer evening, enjoying the immense space -- both literal and internal -- that this phase of my life resides in. I am single in a very contented way. Today no communal urges (which tend to range from horniness to loneliness) pulled at me. So I lay down and read my book and bathed in the beauty of being 23. Until an ant the size of a hippo crawled on my bare tummy. Then I sat up, but then the white of the pages of my book caught the suns rays and glared up into my eyes. I gave up and headed inside for a drink of water. A tall cold glass of water still fit the sensuous freedom of my evening. But then I swallowed weird, ended up choking, and spewed water all over the counter in an effort to avoid drowning.

This sadly is not an unknown occurrence for me. I do not have 'coordination of the epiglottis'.

But choking is also a divine reminder for me. God tapping me gently on the shoulder (or trachea) to remind me that while contentment is wonderful, community is still needed. Treating myself to evenings of self-indulgent relaxation can be beautiful -- but if I do not share life with family, friends, the random old guy on the street that smiles in an ambiguous way, I am missing out. I will relax myself right into a pathetic obituary "young woman dies of clumsy swallowing: glass of water proves fatal". Well perhaps I am exaggerating. But my point is, while we often grow frustrated with our communities, dream of time to be alone, and wish to avoid the hubbub around us -- they are the arm that is raised waiting to heimlich us back to life. Without community we become indulgent creatures that choke on our own isolation. Choking reminds me that no woman is an island... and also that drowning is possible with a very small amount of water.

And hey next time you see me, make sure I am drinking with a straw.

J

Watch out I'm merging...

Some people are born risk takers - they seem almost casual about leaping into commitment- be it financial, relational, or career. This, however, is not me.
I am currently typing this on the first computer I have ever bought. Yes, I was a computer virgin. I made it through four years of university without feeling the urge to drop some dough on a laptop. Actually I take that back, I felt the urge I just fought it. In fact fighting urges is something I have made into an art form. (I know what you’re thinking, and no, I’m not just a computer virgin.)
Well my current car is at 280,000 km and the need to purchase a new car has been looming over me for months. But I have been putting it off. I have a million excuses that I use to convince myself that I don’t need to buy another car yet: its too expensive- I could just take transit-- my car works why sell it?
But the truth is I am afraid. The fear of making the wrong choice, getting myself in a financial bind, or feeling trapped, overwhelm me. This is the same fear that kept me trudging off to the library to use email, scheduling paper writing around when room mates were using their computer, and avoiding male relationships so that my first kiss was with a cast mate not a boyfriend.
But the times my friends they are a changing. I have purchased a laptop, leaped out into auditions and career, and am looking into buying a smart car. The fear is still there buts its nagging no longer clings to me like a familiar friend - it is anxiety that I know is nothing but an obstacle.
This is one tall girl who is about to buy one small car and while I might not be ready to fly over uncharted roads, this gal’s switching lanes, and life better watch out.