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I slept in this morning and then some of the girls wanted to go shopping so I went with them to the mall. If anyone accuses me of not loving anyone then I will use today as proof that I do. I went to the mall for them...in my world, that’s love. When we got back to the house I got a hold of Bob again and then waited to find out where I could meet up with them for dinner. We met at a restaurant in Union Station and had a great time. I sat with Bob, Greg Munro and Tom Jonez and Brandon and Faye Jonez joined us for a while as well. They asked me all about the girls' house and about the street and the Cedars. We told old stories of flying and docking boats and Malibu. After dinner we started walking back to the DC House and stopped where the Supreme Court meets to join together in prayer and in reflection of what the Lord has done in the last year to bring everyone together in the team that they are with Restore. It was awesome to be able to pray on the sidewalk there, in front of the court building with the Capitol in full view. What freedom we have. We headed back to the DC house and Brandon gave me a tour around the house. Maria has done the whole house and it looks so stinkin’ fabulous! It’s such a difference from the Lodge, and yet both are perfectly the essence of its surroundings. It’s truly lovely there and it seems like they’re having a great time re-doing it. After everyone left, he sat down to play the piano and I went and lay under it for a bit. Bob started throwing pillows down the stairs and he and Greg went to go make the bed in the Carriage House. I should have had the foresight to see that I would be taken up on my offer to help and that I wouldn’t be just sitting under the piano and hanging out with Brandon. It was nice to see the change in me though, that I would have been uncomfortable before, thinking that I didn’t deserve to be there, or have a place, unless I was actively doing something for someone. My first desire was really to sit and enjoy listening to Brandon play (when do I get to hear a piano like that played by an old friend...our piano here is so stinking out of tune) and that says volumes of where my heart has been changed. I enjoyed making the bed with the boys though. We couldn’t figure out what all was there. There was a box spring cover, and a bed skirt. We were all terribly confused about it for a while. I broke a pillow cover. Thankfully Bob had done the exact same thing to another one earlier that day so he made me feel better. Brandon gave me a ride home and we worked at not getting too lost. Just a little lost. It was great to talk and actually share things of myself about things that I’m learning and the things that mean something to me. Before I would have been worried about falling into the stereotype of who my friend of old thinks I am, while still upholding that exact concept through the action of trying not to fall into it. I shared about how I felt praying there on the steps, or rather on the sidewalk cause it’s illegal for us to congregate on the steps, and how it felt like that was exactly one of the reasons that brought me here, the pulling on my heart to pray for the Capitol and all who dwell in those halls. up |
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This morning I woke up and didn’t think that I would be in the space where I am now. I figured that Debbie and I would go to the airport and get the ticket extended and that it would be no biggie and that would be it. Turns out that they can’t extend a ticket once one leg of the trip has been completely and the ticket activated. So I’m leaving tomorrow. I feel sad to be going, but I feel good about the decision to go on this ticket and to not buy another one in May.
I had a great talk with one of the girls tonight in the bathroom just about what I’ve learned since being here and then we prayed together for quite some time. It was so good to hear her share with me what she has learned from me and who she sees me as in the Lord, and for me to finally vocalize some of the things that I’ve healed in with regards to being a woman and in a group of women. It was so encouraging and I wish that I could write down all we said because I know that I will forget it later, so in the interest of keeping the idea, forgive the following awkward recounting of what we talked about. I talked about the healing I’ve received in including myself in a group of women. That it doesn’t have to be about being girly but about being the woman that God created you to be. She said that it was freedom, when it’s not conforming, and not unconforming, when what the world says and does has no effect on you, it’s freedom to be who you are. I am a woman who does not fit into a box, I like to huck luggage, and have a weakness for shoes and lipstick. I shared that I feel like I’m just starting to peel the skin of the onion on sharing myself verbally and being vulnerable. We went and prayed in the prayer room for a bit. It was great to not worry about what she’s going to think of me about how I pray or what I say. I just wanted to lift her up to my God who seemed so close it was palpable. I know that there is reality in everything that I say and that there will be impact as I speak blessing over her life. I saw some really vivid pictures of her in response to asking the Lord for an encouragement to see where the Lord is taking her, to see who He made her to be so that she could keep running this race that He has in front of her because she is so broken in this space right now. I thanked Him for her hurt and her pain and her brokenness because through that, she could understand where others had been and could be used as a warrior. I feel good about leaving. I’m sad to go because I really do love it here and I’m going to miss the girls. I’m not going to miss the mess though, I have to be honest about that, but I would take it if it meant having Ana Yamel crack me up with a recounting of a romantic part of a movie like she did today and lunch, “And then...and then...and then...” I will miss. up |
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Thoughts on a plane: I was asked once what kind of people I most gravitate to. I had to think for a while. It wasn’t the usual, it isn’t people like me. I thought of the nerdy guys who have always been my favourites, and the women who don’t fall into the conventional traditions of women. I summed it up as, “those who live outside the status quo, not necessarily those marginalized by society but who live outside the status quo by choice”. At the time I thought that who I was talking to didn’t fit that bill. They were all followers of Jesus who, in my mind, fit very nicely into the idea of normalized society. What I’ve come to realize is that they too live outside the status quo because of how they live out their faith. The amount of love and vulnerability and trust that they have in front of their Lord and those around them is astounding. They may not live on a commune, or be passionate about not owning an oil powered vehicle, but the passion with which they approach life and live out their faith rivals any convention that you could put on them. We do not know what lies at the heart of men until we have allowed them to see ours and have seen theirs, until then there can be no assumptions, no judgment and no pride. Somewhere over the continental divide my mind followed the divide of one life to another. My thoughts flow from the memories and the imaginations of what I will be missing, to the reunions that will occur over the next few days and the conversations with Mum and friends that will happen, of times with my Lord out in front of the lake, of the joyful sound that will resound as I lift my voice with fellow believers in praise. How odd. I’m in Seattle. Where am I? What’s going on? I’m at peace with it all and the Lord is moving me. Karen came and got me at the airport, she took me for some Thai food and then to Sue’s to sleep the night away. I love that for me to sleep in tomorrow still means that it’s like 7 or 8 here. Finally, a time zone change that I can work with. I feel worried about what those back home, or in DC rather, are saying or how they’re feeling. I’m having to take captive thoughts like, “If she doesn’t come back then we’ll know she isn’t one of us” or “I knew she didn’t like it here, or didn’t like me, and she’s proved it by not fighting harder to stay here”. After reading Mum’s email, I felt really good about the fact that me leaving DC and going back to the Island is not about me. I think that we get too caught up on trying to figure out the reasons why God moves us or takes us to places. Sometimes it’s for us, and I know that He’ll still be working and teaching me and giving me opportunities to work and practice His tenets, but sometimes it’s all about being the blessing to those around us. Right now, I feel like Mum is about to get sucked under by the current, and of course she could manage, and of course the Lord will give her strength, but maybe this time round, instead of making her a superhero, He’ll give her support in the form of me to come up behind her. I’m excited for this time of learning how to love my parents, even more as an adult child and what that looks like. I need to start getting into the good habits now because soon it will be me taking care of them in a way that honours how they have taken care of me. up |
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I got to go to church tonight. God is so good. I must move into the knowledge of my calling, prepare and study and train so that I will be ready for when I am called on. I’ve thought it before as well. It’s like the Lord was saying, “You’re not ready yet, but if you go after it, you will be ready tomorrow”. I wouldn’t want to be left out and find out in heaven that someone else is living in my mansions and wearing my crown because I hadn’t prepared myself and because I said no to the Lord because I didn’t think I could do it or wasn’t ready. I don’t want to find out that I was the first that the Lord asked, but that He had to go with the fifth one down the list because the rest of us all said no.
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We got up early and headed to UPres for church this Easter morning. I went with Sue and Karen. It was such a beautiful service, full of grandeur, particularly in the music, and reverence but not stuffy and nothing seemed like it was out of religiosity. I always like going there, the big organ, the full choir, the tympani this time round. So great. After church we went and got some groceries and surprised Sue back at her place by making a veritable Easter morning feast of Canadian Maple Ham, scrambled eggs (made in the pan that had the ham in it so it was all super tasty) and a wonderful fruit salad. Then Karen and I headed to the Renton airport to get the plane ready. We washed some windows and got the gear ready and loaded my stuff while Ben, the plane owner, filled out the customs and flight plan paper work stuff. The plane is all decked out in the WSU colours and logo and all. Even his transport truck to take the Beaver to the water at the other end of the airport from his hanger is the maroon with the WSU logo on the door. They call it the Coug Transport. He’s a bit of a fan. It was a beautiful flight, right over Seattle and the Olympic peninsula up until we got to Victoria. You could see the cloud cover from way off and it started right at the shores of the island. We landed in at Pat Bay with a welcome committee of seals all lined up for our arrival. Karen called in to Customs while Ben and I discussed getting me to Shawnigan and loading up two other friends that they were taking back to Seattle with them. It was all rainy and foggy by then, but we managed to get ourselves to Shawnigan with no problems and landed right at the dock. Turns out Mum and Dad were having coffee at Serious with Nen and Ry in Mill Bay, so they all missed the Beaver. I was on the phone to Brooklyn when they drove back. I had unlocked the door so that confused them, and then there were lights that I had turned on that they were sure they had turned off, so they flipped out when I jumped out from the kitchen and yelled “Boo”. It was so much fun!! We had Easter dinner at the Powells’ where I surprised everyone. It turned into a baby shower for Nenny where she got a whole lot of baby sleepers. After dinner, we headed to the Hirschey’s where there was a goodbye party for Marcus and Holly who are leaving in 2 days for Regina for Marcus to start at RCMP training, “Depot”. I had the great time of surprising everyone who walked in the door and up the stairs. When Marcus and Holly came in I was standing down the hallway behind Rob so that he just saw my dad, and his dad and people across the banister. He did a “hello” to all the faces he saw, which included me behind his dad, then he turned and said “hello” to one other face and did the most perfect double take as it registered in his brain that he had just seen me and ran over and gave me a huge hug. I love my friends!! It was so perfect, cartoon like practically. So it was a great evening of connecting with people, and talking with Holly. The more I talk with her the more of a fan of hers I become. I love who she is and I love that she loves my God and that she loves my friend. She’s just a quality little egg that one. I also got to meet Wade’s new girlfriend Sasha who Marcus and Holly set up together. Oh, those two! Scheming little eggs! up |
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We worked around the house all today. I had an odd dream last night that I woke up from this morning when Paul came to the door to start working on the plumbing upstairs. He’s such a good man to take his Easter Monday to help Dad get this stuff finished for next weekend. It was a weird dream and I can’t remember everything about it. I was in a museum, like it was supposed to be the flight museum and it was closing but there was something sinister that I was supposed to do there and had contacts there and I was so confused. Two nights ago I had a dream in the same kind of a place. It’s been dreams like this for a few days. Anyway. The morning was chill. I had a bowl of rice and goat cheese for breakfast, and for lunch. Mum and I put my new blue couch from Granny’s house up on the rock and under plastic. We were pretty proud of ourselves, but it was just the beginning of my horrible realization of just how weak I’ve gotten in the past 6 months. There was stuff with the couch and then also with the pieces of tree that we were hucking around this afternoon that I just couldn’t do. After starting in on getting the downstairs suite (aka my room) cleaned, we abandoned it and decided to work outside. We threw some giant 8X8’s in the back of the Foothills 450, then we decided to take the Cedar planking that Dad has set aside for making picnic tables up in the “Back 40” up to the trail head to get it out of the driveway. After dinner and watching a documentary on the Lost World of Ramses the second’s capitol city, I finished cleaning my bedroom. It was good to rid everywhere of dust and cat hair. It’s the kind of place that needs a good vacuum every day. Then I unpacked and then cleaned the bathroom. It took several hours to get it all done, but here I am, all nestled into my little room here on the lake and I’m glad. I’m also worried about being comfortable. I don’t want to get comfortable. There’s a lot of fun things to do and fun people to be with, but there’s a greater call, a greater work that pulls my heart and I don’t ever want to get in a space that’s comfortable enough that I don’t need God to survive my neat little life, and that I forget about Him and about who and to what He has called me. He needs to remain in my mind at every step. At every turn I want to praise Him. I want to press in, but I don’t really know what that looks like. I want to be used boldly, but I feel like I’m not equipped for it (which may be a lie to get me to not move) and that I need to spend time in study, and I would like to know what it’s supposed to look like. If even ever so vaguely. I don’t know if that would be good, or if it would truly just freak the crap out of me.
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Yesterday there was a whole big debacle over the property at the Council meeting. We got the third reading, but it’s really useless cause someone put forth a motion that shoots us and themselves in the foot and because they passed it, it could be the end of the whole project and a waste of three years. This morning we all got up early and met some folks from Nen and Ryan’s church at the entrance to the property to go and pray over the property. It was exactly what the family needed after last night. I found that I felt like I didn’t have a place to say, “Let’s pray” last night and that everyone’s first reaction was to worry and stew and say how dumb some of the Council members were being in their thinking. This morning gave me perspective as they were standing around after hearing the news and wanting to build my family up and to remind them of their previous faith. It was so good. I was really glad as well to have a place to pray when they put us all in the middle and held hands. I wanted to confess my bad attitude and bad speech towards those on the council who would act poorly and out of their own need to exercise power and to appease one or two at the expense of the thousands. And I poured out blessing on their heads and families and businesses. I do have unfinished business with unforgiveness cause I can’t seem to get past them making poor decisions based on nothing logical. I must forgive them and pour more blessings on them. We swapped cars a few times and finally found Sam’s car to get Mum and I down to Duncan for Teen Lunch at Quamichan Middle. There’s a boy that we met there that Andrew knows. His father, who’s Cowichan, passed away this Christmas and he, his brother and his pregnant mother, who’s not Cowichan, were evicted April 1st. They still haven’t left the land, but they’ve eaten nothing but rice for the past two weeks. As a non-Cowichan, she has no rights in the area and can’t collect any benefits unless she’s on her own tribal land, or something ridiculous like that. So we gave Billy a carrot. How many 13 year old boys would say yes to a carrot? But Billy did. After teen lunch we headed to meet up to discuss tickets for the Chemainus Theatre fund raiser. Mum dropped me off to get her car after we talked with my new friend Garry who owns Bruce’s Grocery in Duncan (although he just sold it). He’s my new friend. I like him a lot. He’s newly married and is older than Mum and Dad. He’s a total hoot and you can’t help but love him (and never feel condemned by him) when he tells you and everyone around you what to do. I took off to see Sarah and the babies after I left Mum. It was great to just hang out there and be with them, and get to know Lucy, and hold Jack, and talk with Sarah and with Andrew. It was just a really nice afternoon for me. Now the cats are fighting and I had to separate them, and I feel nauseous and I think I’m gonna puke, so I’m going to sleep and I hope that Downstairs Cat will one day relax enough with me in the room to come sleep on the bed with me. But I don’t think it’ll happen. She just snuggled up on my wool sweater that I’ve decided that I’ll permanently give her as a bed down here. She likes the fluffy softness. up |
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I spent all day cleaning. Mum and I tackled the upstairs which was the most dense ratio of dirt per square inch, but the rest of the house seemed to be endless amounts of hardwood flooring that needed all the furniture moved off it, to be vacuumed, wiped down with a wet rag and re-vacuumed, and then to put all the furniture back after wiping it down as well. A little endless. I finally stopped around 10:30 tonight to sit and watch tv for about 10 minutes with Dad before he went to bed. He’s caught a bad cold from Mr Paul while he was over helping Dad with the plumbing. I’m glad I could be here to help her really wipe this place down and to encourage her to chuck stuff out that she doesn’t need. There’s just so much that she doesn’t need and that she keeps just for fear of throwing it out or loosing the memories that come along with the item. It’s like you’re loosing your past when you get rid of an item that belonged to you when you were little, or to someone who is now gone. It’s like they’ll slip into an oblivion, like they never existed because no one remembers them. It’s true. In two decades, my grandparents will quite possibly be forgotten. And I will also be forgotten, along with the millions of people before me who have not made a lasting impression on the history books but who were just anybody’s doing their anybody thing. We really are temporal beings, with our lasting significance being in our love for God as that will bring us into eternity. Everything else does pass, and that’s not some depressing or bad thing. It is what it is, and we will all be forgotten, hallelujah.
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We cleaned up for the rest of the afternoon and I hopped on the elliptical for a bit to get the blood moving. Robin Love arrived and we watched the Canucks loose to Dallas. Very sad. The rest of the folks all showed up throughout the evening. I’m so blessed to be surrounded by such intelligent and interesting people. I loved talking with Julie Marzolf and finding out all the connections that we have that I didn’t know about, like with the Fellowship and Rick going to U VA and all. I sat in on the conversation with Paul Burgoyne, Rick and Peter Mason about technology and all the old technology they used to use growing up and in Uni. Peter still keeps his slide rule with him. They all joked about one of his students asking what a slide rule is. I didn’t want to then walk into the joke and ask him myself, but I don’t know what it is. I know it isn’t an abacus, and I know it’s for figuring out math, but I have no idea what it actually is or how to use it. In that whole convo, it raised an interesting question of how depend are we on technology and where we are loosing the knowledge of the analog. Many know how to use GPS, but if your batts run out will you be able to get yourself off the mountain using a map and a compass, or be able to steer your boat to safety using geometry and triangulation? There’s so much that is lost in this world of the “difficult” way of doing things because computers have made it easy for the every man. It’s taking the intelligence out of things to make everything accessible to the majority. Which begs the question, is technology actually making us smarter, or just more stupid and lazy? I would have to think that it’s the later. All the thinking has been taken out of the majority of things for us. The amount of technology in this society, should mean that it’s populated with a bunch of geniuses, but we see the reality is far from it. It’s the whole idea of an affluent beginning. If your potential starts at, say a meaningless number of, five, then with the money and privilege that we’re born into in this society (even if you’re the poorest of the poor, you’re still in North America and have a better chance than an average person where the infrastructure doesn’t exist) you should be able to reach a 15, but instead, because you started at a 5 and you see the world around you struggling to get to a 6, then you think you’re doing pretty good and will just coast along. It’s the same with technology. If it’s all here at our finger tips, it seems to me that it should be a massive jumping off point where we can reach that “15” or “20” (again, with the useless numbers just for the sake of demonstration), but instead everyone seems to be content to live at a 6 or a 7. It just seems to be laziness and apathy for excellence in anything that we do. What we spend our money on is another that comes to mind. The amount that we throw away just because we can and the money is readily available is astounding. Dollar stores are filled with crap that no one needs, and yet people buy it because it’s there and “it doesn’t cost much”. So instead of seeing the money that we have as an incredible blessing and resource, it’s just something that can be squandered away. It’s a jumping off point again. Imagine what we could do with the resources that we have if we truly knew the value of the dollar that’s in our pocket, or the intelligence in our pocket, or the community interaction that’s in our pocket, or the education in our pocket, or the support that is inherent in our social structure in our pocket. Maybe this is why I feel like I can be destined for greater than the usual, than what could be expected of me based on my position and training. If everyone else that looks like me, comes from a background like mine, has the gifts and education that I do, does those or these things, then I should do them as well. But I often feel like there’s so much more for those like me, who have been given the gift of such a jumping off point (and that would speak to about 80% of my generation within this society, so don’t think that I’m talking about a select amount of people, I’m pretty average) that it has gone without use, it’s been wasted, it’s been squandered away in comfort and the “usual” and the expected. If we all think that life is supposed to look like, then that’s what it’s going to look like. What if we convinced an entire generation that it isn’t what it’s supposed to look like, that it’s greater, that it’s bolder, that it’s more extravagant in the amount of Love heaped on those around us and around the globe? What would it look like? Would they fall into the usual, based on what we consider that to be, or would they create their own “usual” that would resemble something like Acts, or something outside of any of our imaginations? What would it look like if people stopped planning for themselves, and decided to look foolish, and to truly let God have the reigns of their lives, even if that means not doing anything for a bit because God wanted to know that you were truly listening. The other good conversation was about environmentalism and the boys got that one going in the kitchen and the women talked about it on the other side of the kitchen bar. It’s an interesting question. How much of what we do as small potatoes individuals can truly make a difference in the environmental grand scale? As Peter put it, “It would be like spitting in the lake out there and thinking that if I keep doing it it’s going to raise the level of the lake, and then at the first down pour we see what a lot of water looks like”. If I drive a hybrid or not seems to really defy the whole question for me. And it’s not that I want people to be driving around everywhere, saying “It doesn’t really matter so I’m going to buy an SVU and suck back as much gas as possible”. I don’t. I want them out of their cars completely and interacting with their neighbourhoods and their environments, and not with the Wal-Mart or Target that’s 10 miles down the street and then when they get home, they drive into their garage in their apartment complex and go right upstairs from the secure parking, so that you never have to see or interact with anyone except the cashier, and it’s not like they matter anyway cause they’re just a cashier and are probably a single mom who didn’t use protection and deserves to be in that position, it’s not like they’re intelligent or important like me anyway. Or something of the sort. Maybe that’s a bit harsh, but we do see a difference in how people perceive those around us who serve us each day. The waitress at the corner diner is really less of a human than I am because of her position. But back to the environmental thing. I believe that we should live in the ways that the fear mongers would tell us to. We should kill our televisions. We should kill our cars. We should walk more and bike more and self-power more, and maybe even do more hippie Yoga. But let’s be honest about why we do it. Do I think that I’m going to save the world by making the choices that I do in my lifestyle? Nope. I really don’t. But I wouldn’t want it any other way. I still want to live in a city where I can be within biking and walking distance to much of my life, with a good local grocery store and maybe the odd local shop. That’s what I would like, because I believe that I get more out of life and those around me when I do. It feels more right when I do. It feels icky and disjointed when I drive to shop at Costco or Safeway. I feel disconnected when I drive for a half hour to get to where I’m going and to not talk to any of the people around me when I go. These are all just thoughts after the fact and ones that I’ve had before. It was still interesting to hear the counter to Al Gore’s movie and we all agree that it was just a political move on his part and that no one sees him living with any kind of integrity to what it is that he says. Dad was asleep, sick, in the attic. Delirious with a fever. up |
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A whole day with Broklyn after getting my hair cut. So great to be able to talk for hours without stopping with just one person. I love how well we connect and the depth that we bring out of each other. We’re able to take the few hours that it takes to really chew on some topics and talk about past experiences where a story may take a good half hour to be able to get all of the back history and thoughts from it all out. It felt like too often others just weren’t patient and needed to just have it all instantly. We talked about being single and the freedom to follow Christ at a greater cost allows. We talked about spiritual things and love things and family things and things I learned while away. We had great talks about Islam and my new found difficult with calling myself a Christian because of all the cultural connotations that come with the label. She was really encouraged. It was good to be able to talk about the project in Lantzville and have her understand completely the frustrations that we hit this week because of all the frustrations her family hits with the political arena in business. It was so good and comfortable, but still lots to share, it wasn’t protected but it was safe and honest. We read before going to sleep and slept in her parents’ king bed.
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What a beautiful day. Brooklyn and I had a quick breakfast, after waking up without feeling like I could never move my back again (meaning I actually felt good which is a rarity), and headed off to church in Colwood. I met up with Amanda at her place and we headed into town for some sushi. We had great talks about some of my past. We went to a lovely used bookstore on Fort that I had no idea existed and has evidently been there for a really long time. I love the big tall stacks of books all the way up to the ceiling. We went for a walk up in the park. I love Victoria. I repeated it all day. We passed some people who had put up some nylon webbing across two trees and were practicing their tight rope walking. You just don’t see that everyday, unless you're in Victoria. The Canucks won their game tonight in the first round of playoffs against the Dallas Stars. up |
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It was Dad’s birthday today. Mum and I went into Mill Bay to get him a present and to find fun things for dinner. I ended up falling asleep on the sofa and I just couldn’t wake up. I kept trying, especially after Ryan and Dad came home from their excursion into Victoria to meet with the Minister of Communities (formerly of Municipalities) to discuss the District and all their random power mongering which is bad for the area and the community that they’re supposed to serve. It’s been such a lesson of seeing power go to a person’s head and what it can do to a person. They are supposed to be in a position of serving their community, but instead it has become an arena of pettiness and hautiness and extortion. “Dance monkey, dance” is what I keep telling Dad, cause it really is exactly what this one woman in particular seems to be saying. Once I woke up I got some of the story of their trip in and what an experience it was for both of them to be able to discuss with someone in power who seemed to have the community’s best interest in mind. Ryan really liked it and seemed to get a lot from it, including the tour through the Leg buildings that Dad gave him, seeing that dad has painted just about every corner in the place he knew all the little bits around. Dad said that Ry was really well spoken and did really well. I hope that it has a positive effect on him being able to see himself as the intelligent man with something to offer the world that he is. Mum, Dad and I went for a little boat ride with the electric motor. We saw two turtles, which has us worried cause they don’t belong here and there was only one turtle last year, so they’re multiplying and that’s never any good for an eco-system. We sat and listened to the Red-winged Black birds calling to each other, such a distinctive call and one that always makes me think of the Lake. We just cruised the end of the lake while indulging in the appetizers of maple smoked wild salmon and wine, and coffee in Dad’s case. Then we headed back to the house for a fine dinner of lamb that Mum made (without my help because I had fallen asleep on the sofa). Lynn and Paul came over for desert for a bit.
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It’s ridiculous how quickly I can turn sedentary here. I can spend hours reading and watching hockey with the ‘rents. It doesn’t help that it is Playoff season and there’s 1 at least two hour hockey game a night. How do we react to a big responsibility and one that makes me fear action? Interesting that I feel like running away from things. Like I don’t want to disappoint anyone so I’d rather not do it and be in control of the disappointment. It does feel much larger than what I know, but then maybe I just need to be like Hansen right now, his first NHL game was Game 2 of the series against Dallas and it’s like he doesn’t know that he shouldn’t be able to go to the net, all by himself, so he does. It’s not like he’s actually going to make the play most of the time, but that doesn’t seem to stop him from thinking that he can and from acting on the impulse to go the net. I don’t know if it’s just that he has something to prove, or if he truly doesn’t realize that most of the plays aren’t going to be successful and so he continues to act on the possibility of a successful play. It’s an odd place to be right now. I’m not sure what to do and I feel like I’m not taking all the opportunities that I have in front of me at this time. It’s like I don’t know what I’m doing here because I don’t have a specific purpose. I’m waiting for Bunky to be born and that’s what I’m doing. I’m waiting on the Lord, but it feels like as I get comfortable into the calm that if He hasn’t spoken clearly now, He isn’t going to later. I know that He will, but it feels like that. up |
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After church, Mum and I got back to the cabin to discover that Dad had been busy all morning making us a picnic lunch. It was all packed and ready to go so we headed off in the Lund to Memory Island. It was all nice and sunny, but then we hit the water and the wind picked up and we were down right cold. We landed on the south end and pulled the boat way up after making Mum get out and get her feet wet, we were at the other end of the boat...she was closer...it made perfect logical sense. We set off for the other end and after an arduous 3 minutes of strolling along the well defined path, we had the difficult decision to make as to which picnic bench to sit at. There were fishermen on the west side in a boat in perfect view of the one picnic table. So we decided on the more intimate, yet more shaded and colder, one in the trees. We set out the red checked table cloth and then came the bounty of food that Dad had made. There was cold chicken legs, warm chili in a thermos, hard boiled eggs, carrot sticks, hot coffee with cream for those two caffeine partakers and orange juice (sans caffeine) for me. He had everything. It was all laid out with red retro plates and mugs, and yellow retro bowls, cups and utensils. We sat and ate and chatted a bit about what Pastor Funk had said this morning in the service about freedom that God gives us and what that entails. We were full and getting quite cold so we decided to take the “long” way back and “explore” the island. You have to understand that we have known about every square inch of that very small island at some point in our lives so “exploring” really is a subjective thing. As soon as we moved 15 feet and came to the other picnic table we discovered that we should have been content to be in the vision of the fishermen because that table was all warm and in direct sunlight. So we decided to rest there from our long journey. Rest, of course, meant for Dad to start his own fervent broom (google broom to find out about it) pull to eradicate the island from the intruder flora, and for me meant going and climbing on an arbutus tree. Mum tried to sit for a while, but after I took some pictures of her, then handed her the camera when I went to climb on the tree, she ended up getting up as well to take some shots. We made it back safely to our boat that thankfully hadn’t floated away or been flooded by a passing speed boat (as has happened on other occasions) and burned hydrogen (as opposed to rubber) back to our little dock. When we got back, Dad headed into the bush for a bit to knock down some of the winter’s windfalls while Mum and I talked in the front room about what bringing up kids in “these days” must be like and what a struggle against the culture that we love to hate and love to take it’s freedoms and privileges for granted that it will be for Nen and Ryan to raise Bunky within the public school system. Maybe I’ve just totally lost track of reality for adolescents in particular, but I just can’t imagine it being that much worse than what we had in the way of pressure. I’ve also come out of school with a giant chip on my shoulder just wanting anyone to try and make me succumb to their “normalicy” of reaction, desires, culture, society, whatever crap they happen to be peddling on the latest info-mercial. We all cleaned up the downstairs workshop together, which really, mostly, just involved moving things around and not completely dealing with the mess, but just hiding it away so that it feels like it’s cleaner and actually organized and dealt with. After dinner, the Courvilles came over for desert and to watch the Queen, the movie. I found it an interesting thought that there was all this pressure on her at the time to show some emotion because the public all needed help in their “grief”. I would have to agree with the sentiments that the Queen was portrayed to have throughout it and although it seemed like the film makers wanted it to be viewed negatively, practically every thing that she said (apart from a distain for who Diana was because I don’t think that either the Royal family, nor the masses, every truly understood who she was) I would have to echo as completely valid for a Royal. I wonder if it’s just a globalized Americanization, this cry for emotion to be the rule of the day and that which is most valued as a characteristic trait? I don’t know where this has come from, this dumbing down, this emotional band wagon that seems to have taken over the “Westernized” world. Anyway, it was all very interesting to me and I can’t help but feel for the Queen as she had to break with traditions that were centuries old because a bunch of million people wanted to see emotion from her. She’s the Queen damn it, and that’s what she’s there for. up |
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Dad bought a serious chainsaw helmet today with a visor and everything. We’re much happier that he’s safer. And so today he went to town and finished up clearing the rest of the windfalls and a bunch of other dead little trees. Now there’s a tonne of wood up there to be bucked up and brought out. We could easily spend a month out there and I know that I really should go and spend like a week up there. I’ll regret it if I don’t, but then laziness takes over me and I see all my books, and then I just end up spending all day on the computer organizing whatever useless thing I’ve gotten into my head for the day or reading.
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