Peace is The Opposite of Security

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It has been occurring to me lately that safety is not something I'm supposed to be concerned about because concern for my security is what often keeps me from living biblically and loving the way Jesus loved. Jesus himself seems to have little regard for safety, fasting for 40 days, not giving a defence for himself at his trial, speaking out against powerful figures, eating with the lowest of the low, and being homeless. His instructions to his disciples mirror this tendency.

Since high school, a prominent question on my heart has been, "What is the difference between those who follow Jesus and those who do not?" Honestly, most of the "differences" I have come across have been unsubstantial and inconsistent - certainly nothing to get too excited over.

I'm thinking maybe the difference is supposed to be that, just like in the Bible, with Jesus, his apostles and the prophets, God really does want us to risk our lives - figuratively AND physically. I'm thinking maybe true faith is supposed to be dangerous in its experimentation, that its ab0ut more than attempting to be a decently nice person in your day to day life and having a cosmic shoulder to cry on.

I don't mean to say that I'm going to try to kill myself. I do mean to say that I'm going to experiment with this idea of loving with literal abandonment of my self to the point where I don't let my own safety stop me from embracing my opporunities to love. I'm going to trust that God will protect me as He sees fit.

Project #1: Going door to door with a couple of friends in my city's poorest neighbourhood to ask if there is any house or yard work we can do for them for the afternoon for free. If nobody in the whole neighbourhood wants give us something to do, we'll pick up garbage off their streets.

I like this idea because its simple, it doesn't cost me any money, its relational and I find it terrifying. At the same time I'm not being entirely irrational (God DID give us brains...) - I won't be alone in this adventure (yay for crazy friends!) and my city's poorest neighbourhood is hardly the slums of India. From what I understand, this neighbourhood consists mostly of people on welfare, new immigrant families with young children and university students. That's not too much to handle for a first time experiment I think. We shall see.

My Brother is Awesome

My brother is in New Zealand right now, doing his university co-op.

He comes from a family of quiet, reserved people. Thus, I am so VERY proud of him for stepping outside our family's box and taking some risks! I am so proud, in fact, that I am going to show him off on my blog. Here are three of his documented adventures:

1) Sky-Diving

2) Bungee Jumping

3) Super Extreme Bungee Jumping

Yay Jon!

"Charity" Friendship - A Case Study in My Need for an Attitude Adjustment

The other week a friend of mine said, "I hope I'm not somebody's 'that friend', that awkward friend people keep around because they feel its their Christian duty." All of us agreed that that would be horrible. We all had examples of "that friend" in our own lives and we all assured each other that none of us was "that friend" to each other.

I admit I am currently ignoring a "we should keep in touch" e-mail from my present "that friend." Throughout the year, I have tried to keep up a friendly facade to his face. I feel guilty for ignoring him now but its gotten to the point where the mere sight of him exhausts me and I cannot keep up the act anymore. And because school is over, I no longer have to.

I've been thinking a lot about this. He is certainly not my first "that friend." But this is a case study so I'll focus on him. This is what I think I've figured out:

At first, I genuinely did think he was great. A little awkward and idiosyncratic, but seriously, who isn't? I myself am awkward and idiosyncratic. So whatever. I feel like this is important. I didn't ALWAYS see him as a "charity case".

Then I invited him to a Halloween party. At the party, we all played "The Story Game" where everyone writes a paragraph to begin a story. Then they pass the page along until everyone has had a chance to contribute their own paragraphs to the story. He was the only guy there. The rest were conservative females. He chose to write about things like rape, violence and incest. People were discusted and I was embarrassed. Despite this I never talked to him about it and I think I even thanked him for for his addition of testosterone to the party. I think it was more or less at this point when my real friendship turned into a charity friendship.

Then it began to creep me out that he always seemed to know what was going on on my Facebook wall. He would say things in class like, "I liked your status about the hippo!" when I had only changed my status to being about the hippo a few minutes before our class started. I was uncomfortable but I never talked to him about that either.

Then it really began to annoy me that he talked incessantly and never asked my opinion. In fact, he doesn't know who I am at all, because he didn't ask, or if he did, he didn't give me more than a few seconds to respond before interrupting. I felt used, like I wasn't a person but something for him to deposit his thoughts at. This has been my biggest cause for resentment. But I have never said a word about it.

I know I am one of his few friends, so I've tried to be "nice" to him. But you know, there's a reason people like that don't have many friends. Its because they don't know that what they do annoys people. And that's because those of us who are "ohhh-so-sacrificial" in putting up with them in the first place are all a bunch of non-confrontational fraidy-cats who don't actually care enough about these people to open up and just be honest! Or at least I am.

I'm not doing him a favor by silently enduring him. I'm just protecting myself from a potentially messy confrontation and encouraging his maladaptive social patterns! And that's really selfish of me.

How I reacted to him was wrong, stressful for me, and entirely unnecessary. I probably could have fixed things from the beginning if I had cared enough. I know I would never, ever want to be silently endured by someone I thought was my friend. I would not want to be someone's reason to feel like a superior good person because they have the patient stamina to put up with me long term. I would rather they just stopped being my friend.

Lesson: For the sake of other potential "those friends'" future friendships with other people and for my sanity so that I no longer ever have to have another "that friend" again, I resolve to get some balls.

But truly, this is often an issue I feel over my head in, so if you have something to add or point out to me, please do.

I Call This: Exams Make Life Seem Less Enchanting and Beautiful

An Original Picture by Gloria Bennett

Southern Ontario Weather is A Ruthless Flirt

From my experience with Northern Ontarioans and people from other provinces, it seems Southern Ontarioans whinge the most about the weather. In BC, snow is SO WONDERFUL because it doesn't come very often and its associated with positive things like skiing and snowboarding. In Manitoba, they have to like snow because it is their reality. I guess its like developing a good relationship with your little sister or something. They are just always there so you may as well enjoy them. Northern Ontarioans take the same attitude as Manitobans. But Southern Ontarioans... we have to deal with, not a little sister, but a RUTHLESS FLIRT from February to May! That's FOUR months of a flirtatious, on again off again, "friends with benefits" sort of relationship before we get any sort of commitment out of our weather! And we don't appreciate it. So we whine about it. A lot. And though this will reveal how tasteless in music I can be, it reminds me of this song.

Hmph. Dirty, Non-Committal, Heart-breaking Tease!

The Dude Who Always Wears a Skirt

I know I just posted like an hour ago, but, I'm at the library at school in between study groups and the Dude-Who-Always-Wears-A-Skirt is 3 meters away from me RIGHT NOW!

This is a guy, about 20, who I often see downtown or on a bus. He is always wearing a skirt. He generally wears serongs. The rest of his clothing looks old, worn and eccentric. And his hair is always a mess.

This guy is always smiling. Always. He's smiling right now and he's on a computer, writing something down on yellow paper.

My friend saw him hug a homeless man and tell him that he is loved.

I first encountered the Dude-Who-Always-Wears-A-Skirt at a folk concert. He looked a bit like Moses that night, Moses in a serong.

He intruiges me. If I was more brave I would talk to him. Just the sight of him makes me want to be just like him, eccentric and happy.

Seriously, he's smiling and he's FLIPPING THROUGH A DICTIONARY!

And... he just asked a group of girls nearby how to spell "insulted".

Hmm...

I better go.

Blue Like Jazz: The Movie

Yes, its real.

And, as sad and desperate as this sounds, in their attempt to up the quality of the production, YOU can be an "Associate Producer" for the low, low price of $99.95!
Benefits:
1)Your name in the credits!
2)A T-Shirt
3)You become Director Steve Taylor's "special friend."

Its true!
I read it on the internet:
Blue Like Jazz: The Movie

Another Anti-Facebook Rant

I think Facebook, the internet in general, cell phones, iPods and personal technology of all sorts can act as an opiate for our loneliness.

I take the bus nearly every day and every time I do, just about every single person on that bus has an iPod playing or a cell phone in hand. Heck, on at least a weekly basis, while on or waiting for the bus, I take my cell phone out and play with the settings just so that I can distract myself from whatever is going on around me. If I don't feel busy, I'll remember I'm sitting there alone and if I'm sitting there alone there's a good chance I'll start to feel lonely.

Personally, I don't like to acknowledge my own loneliness because I pride myself on being an introvert and introverts are supposed to love their alone time. I have also embraced the idea that silence is golden, and I find people who incessantly talk for the sake of talking and don't seem to ever actually say anything of any substance at all to be very annoying. My roommate, another adherent to the idea that silence is golden, is also a very quiet person and we spent hours living together in total silence. And, I really like the idea of being perfectly capable of entertaining myself, thank you very much. I pride myself on not being an attention whore

In other words, I interpreted loneliness as weakness, even ungodliness, because, you know, "all you need is God."

So I think instead of acknowledging my loneliness, I stuffed much of my alone time with opiates, especially Facebook. Now that Facebook is gone, I'm even resorting to other opiates. I've watched more TV this past week than the whole last semester combined I'm sure.

But maybe loneliness is God-given.

Maybe we're supposed to feel empty when not connecting with anyone else for the 6th hour straight. Maybe that shouldn't be something remedied by personal technology. Maybe its because its hard to actively love people when you spend most of your time alone, in your own little world, thinking to yourself as you go about your day quietly. And we are, after all, called to actively love people.

So maybe for me that means talking more, even if I don't have anything particularly profound, witty or funny to say. Maybe sharing mediocre stories and thoughts with my roommate or the guy beside me on the bus is okay too. And maybe when I feel lonely because I truly am physically alone I should call someone. Because, judging by the amount of time most people complain they waste on Facebook, I bet a lot of people aren't actually as busy as I think they are.

Anyway, these are the thoughts that have been formulating in my head these last couple of days. Ironically, I'm using this blog right now as an opiate, because I really was feeling down for being completely alone for the 6th hour straight. And now I do feel a little better. But then again it is 1:17am and I should probably have gone to bed rather than sit around feeling lonely or taking the time to type this out. But I really did need to clear my head before going to sleep. So this has been good. Or maybe I just should have called someone in a different time zone. But whatever. GOOD NIGHT!

Unengaged

You'd think removing Facebook from my life wouldn't have that much of an impact. I mean, its not like I was *always* on it. I DO have a life. I'm involved in school, volunteering, work, social stuff and of course classes and homework.

Yet I've found that without it I've become significantly more lonely. Not being on it really has made me feel disconnected. I couldn't understand why, I mean, I really do have friends and places to go. I thought, *Do I really need to have EVERY last hour of my day feeling as though I'm connected to other people?* I mean, I was alive before Facebook. I even went through the vast majority of high school without it. Facebook, in the grand scheme of my life, has been a relatively recent thing. And yet, without it, now life feels somewhat emptier.

And I think I've JUST figured it out.

As I was lecturing myself in my head about how I shouldn't feel the need to be connected to other people at all times, I realized that I really do spend a lot of time entirely quiet and self-contained, not relating to anyone at all. For example, I've been up 4 hours now and as far as social interactions go, I've had less than 20 minutes of conversation in the total course of that 4 hours. And this morning has been an exceptionally social morning too because of various circumstances. But I've still spent most of that time not engaged with anyone at all. And though I had class for 50 minutes of it, listening to a professor who doesn't know me from a hole in the wall hardly counts as time engaged in a real personal, social interaction.

Even when I'm volunteering, only about 1/3 of that time is actually spent engaged with someone else. Usually I'm just getting people coffee or juice. Or when I work, even if I'm working with someone else, most of the time we work there is silence as we both concentrate on our separate tasks.

There's lots of polite banter throughout all of my days, "thank yous," "sorrys" and "excuse me's" with various people I usually don't even make eye contact with. This also hardly counts as quality personal interactions.

Even when I'm at home with my roommate, even though we like each other and everything, most of the time we are at home we are either reading or on our computers. We have good conversations, but certainly not every day.

It makes me wonder, on a typical day, just how much time do I actually spend engaged with other people? I'm pretty sure the answer would be less than 10% most of the time. :S

NO WONDER I feel alone so often! I AM alone so often!

I'm pretty sure my life was not always this isolated. I think its very much the university lifestyle of lots of reading/assignments and impersonal, uninteractive lectures compounded with everyone's high internet use and our generally isolationistic society. Ontario is especially notorious for its cold and impersonal nature.

I know solitude is good and all, but I think maybe I've gone over board, and I don't think I'm the only one.

This weekend, I'm going to measure the amount of time I actually spend talking to people.

A Couple Noteworthy Art Pieces

Sometimes, its really rewarding being a Christian in my Art History classes. I get a lot out of many pieces because so much art was created with the intention to inspire its viewers to meditate on God and learn something about His character through their work. Here are some examples.

"The Gleaners" by Jean-Francois Millet, 1857


These women are gleaners. What they are gathering now, leftover grain from a harvest, is literally all that they will have to feed their families with. They are the poorest of the poor in French society. Notice the high horizon line, and how even though these women are at the forefront of the painting, none of them cross the horizon line because they are so "low." You cannot see their faces because to Parisian elites, the main audience of this painting, these people do not matter - much like how most North Americans don't care that much of their wardrobe was made in a sweatshop in China.

Though these people "do not matter," Millet is respecting them by painting them with expensive paint and presenting them to the public at one of the Louvre's salons, basically an annual sophisticated art show in Paris.

He is sending the message that these women are important to France, because their clothes together form the French flag.

Lastly, he paints them as heroic, strong women because with this painting, he reminds the audience of Ruth, from the Bible, who was also a gleaner - and a strong, heroic woman. By associating these women with her, he is by extension saying that these women are strong and heroic as well.

And I pretty much love it! It reminds me that Jesus loves these women SO MUCH, and that it is my job as His follower to love them as well. It reminds me that even though this was 150 years ago, the same thing is still happening today, in our post-colonial era, where the rich are off in their own world yet there are millions of people in the world living in absolute poverty, and this situation STILL must be redeemed.

Another favourite:
"Mary Magdelene" by Donatello, 1450s


This guy on youtube does a great job explaining this sculpture so I'll just let him do it. Its all dramatic and he has a good voice for explaining such things.

I love it because she looks like my heart has felt. The instant I saw it, even without having studying it, I thought, *I've been there too*. It reminds me that God accepts us where we are at, despite the disgusting states of our hearts.