on rock and the fine art of listening.

Currently, I am in the process of taking pictures of all the funny stuff around my office, and all the artsy stuff around my house that is hard to realize apart from feeling artistically inspired to notice (whew. trying saying that five times fast). I will finally update my photojournal this week, I promise.

I'm also in the process of disliking myself because I spend too much money. I do so because a lot of my life depends on being artistically inspired, and this involves the purchasing of spectacular films and music- such as Darjeeling Limited, Xavier Rudd's White Moth album, and Waking Ned Devine, none of which I could find on sale yesterday.

In reality, all I bought this weekend was a fantastic book called "Jamie at Home". Its a book about a chef who grows food in his backyard and cooks a lot, with a lot of beautiful photography and artwork. Buying this was not a poor choice, necessarily.

To make a long story short, I am not being honest with myself. I feel bad about money because I do not keep myself organized. That is the truth.

In other news, I really like the new Sarah Mclachlan record, but I am too cheap to actually pick it up. The initial concensus regarding the new Death Cab for Cutie album, that my friends and I share, is that it kind of sucks. But I think it is one of those albums you dislike for a long time, then all of a sudden love like crazy- like every album that Wilco and the Arcade Fire have put out. "Narrow Stairs" reminds of of Death Cab's older stuff- more rocky, less overtly artsy... i could be wrong. Please argue with me.

I am still a huge fan of Xavier Rudd, although I can't find his stuff anywhere. And I am loving everything by The Album Leaf right now, but the same problem presents itself. alas.

In other other news, the new Coldplay comes out next month. Really excited to hear this one, I won't lie. Violet Hill, I think, is one of their best songs to date... or to listen to on a date. But I have no idea what that is like.

Case in point: I still have yet to hold hands with a girl, since publishing this entry. Alas alas. One of these days.

I have a lot of music to catch up on. Later.

this office life

I have been listening to a lot of The Album Leaf in the past couple days- hence the previous video I posted. A couple mornings ago I found my roommate's copy of "in a safe place" and listened to it about 4 times over during the course of the day. I am down.

Last night after work I sat at home, on my deck, trying to put together some poems. But I forgot all the lines I was making up in my head on the drive home, which I thought was lame as life.

Then a friend of mine gave me a chocolate cake for my birthday, which is sitting on my friend Brad's desk here in our small church office, next to our mandatory pot of french-press coffee and bowls of "fruit loops" (Being a youth worker has it's benefits). So I wrote what I could, whatever random lines I could come up with, before my friends and I watched Hotel Rwanda.

I was hoping to watch something really arsty, like Persepolis, Once, I'm Not There, or The Savages... maybe next Thursday (Thursday nights, for the record, are 1 dollar movie rental nights at a video place a block away from where I live. Ideal since being arsty goes hand in hand with being cheap). I am at least 5 or 6 movies behind at the moment.

I have nothing at all planned this weekend, besides hanging out with a certain someone on Sunday, so I might try and do some actual good writing again. We'll see. My computer will not leave this office, as I have been on it all week and there is always the need for moderation of time. So it will be good.

For now, here is a list of essential items for a Youth worker's office, that I have discovered (look forward to pictures);

1) A big funny hat
2) Candy
3) Weird thrift store treasures (like our earthenware juice container, and fake yellow flowers
4) Bags of chips
5) Coffee. Hot Chocolate. Hot Apple Cider.
6) Guitars
7) Letters to read, for those few times of being over-computerized
8) Really cool looking t-shirts
9) Freezies
10) Books. The good ones. Currently, The End of Religion, ,The Wounded Healer Contemplative Youth Ministry, and Stumbling Toward Faith.

11) The occasional student.

The journey continues.

another day

It was another long day today. And it's starting to feel like yesterday was weeks ago. Thus my current act of posting two days in a row.

I'm feeling really sick today, mainly because I haven't slept well in a week and because I have been thinking non-stop about everything since I started here. Working here feels like a major adjustment, from hard construction work to administrative work. The big question I'm asking myself, well one of them, is "where does youth ministry start"?

I mean, where / when do I start being all the things I read about in youth ministry books? The man of character who disciples students?

I started reading a book today called "Contemplative Youth Ministry". In the first chapter the author says, "The real crisis those of us who seek to share faith with youth is this:

We don't know how to be with our kids.
We don't know how to be with ourselves.
We don't know how to be with God. "

Later on, describing what a contemplative approach is like, we writes, "The yearning to be fully awake and alive, the desire to be attentive to others, the longing to be receptive to God's call in every moment of our lives is the heart of the contemplative tradition." Later he talks about "unrehearsed moments when a deep sense of gratitude falls upon us and we find ourselves without need or want, satisfied and reverent at the mystery of life. "

So, the more I read this the more I feel the need to be alive. I'll be honest, feeling dry and burdened is something I feel most of the time. Sometimes I get so busy, like in the last two days, that I forget to just "be"- to take a second to just be who I am, and to sit with a student and allow them to do the same.

Or, in plain terms, I don't allow myself to stop and be loved. My place in working here is not supposed to be this rush. I am supposed to be taking rest. I am really meant to, as the author describes "take a long loving look at the real... a look, long and lovingly, at what is".

Really, in all the rush I don't know how to just enjoy these moments, to enjoy the comfort of contemplating, about where I stand and where I am going, before getting buried by the rush of life.

I'm still trying to figure this out. I think, it could be as easy as taking care of some unpaid bills and then taking a deep breathe or two. But I think the real challenge is being able to apply any of this to life. To allow myself the time to realize I am loved enough where I am right now. And it definitely is a challenge.

The other question I was asking myself, for the record, was "what is it like to really be humble". I'll have to save that for another day.

More to come.

pizza and better office space

It's been a really long weekend, friends. But it was good.

I spent most of my weekend on a guy's retreat, with some boys from my youth group. We spent 3 days on a small lake near long stretches of ranch land and rolling hills. Driving there it felt like the movie "Open Range".

At night the moon mirrored on the lake perfectly, setting up an atmosphere of loons and frogs, the sound carrying across the surface of the lake. It was really more beautiful than I can describe with prose right now.

Then yesterday I spent the day at a silent retreat place called "The Mark Centre". Me and some young adults read books, talked about life, ate food together, and enjoyed a day of quiet, which is a nice thing to have every so often in the chaos of life.

I had a lot of conversations this week, mostly about the love of God. From what I have read, and heard from a lot of interviews on "The Hour", a lot of people don't like God. Sometimes it feels like the God they are talking about hates them, or else could care less about what they do. The God they talk about, in fact, seems to do more harm than good via the people who call him friend.

I have a problem with this, because I have this image of God as a lot more loving than that... a lot more gracious than all the rules and legalisms that Christians tie to God.

So here is what I came up with in my reflections. There are two basic, essential, truths I have of God. The first is that God likes me, likes me, and nothing I can do will change that. The second is that I am trying. I'm trying to be a good person and figure out life, and that, I think, is all God expects of me.

And this kind of love is really hard for me to accept, because I grew up feeling worthless a lot of the time. In the working world our worth is defined by what we can do. The people with the highest skills get money, success, and value. But a lot people with low social skills- the mentally handicapped, the abused- are deemed worthless.

In light of this, the love God is supposed to have for us is opposite. Essentially, I don't have to do anything to deserve love, and I don't have to carry all the guilt or shame from mistakes I made in the past.

Really, this should free me, us, up to enjoy life. Even if I am feeling broken most days, I want to know that I have love to look forward to everyday. The question "am I loved" should not even come into my mind, as much as the question of "what can I figure out today" should.

One thing I have said in conversation before is that "If life feels easy for me, I'm probably not being honest with myself". To be honest is to know I have a lot of hurt to carry, and having the humbleness to give that up. In the end, I think it is more humble for me to accept that I am loved and cared for, rather than always thinking God's love is only given to those people who are good enough.

I am good enough. Right now. And that is what makes the difference.

In case you are wondering what my "today" is like, today is my first day working in the office, at my first Youth Ministry job ever. The beauty of working here is that things like solitude, praying, reading and meeting with friends is part of my job. So far, I am loving it.

More to come.

PS- please ask me any questions if anything I just said sounds confusing. It's really tough trying to transfer really good conversations into semi- good journal entries sometimes.

Later.

making my way up the west coast

some scattered thoughts, before more traveling

(I really hope this is my last weekend away for the next long while).

creativity scares the hell out of me,
on days like this, the really nice ones,
inside without words
or consequence.

tough love never asked me any questions,
a lot of tough, not a lot of love.
tough love hurt more than anything,
given the days I could take it seriously.

originality doesen't like my living room,
staring blankly from the walls like christmas lights,
taken down nonchalantly,
like christmas itself.
I never like to grow tired of things I love.

I've made more excuses than mistakes,
because forgiveness doesn't come without conditions.
I'm wasting today to
like myself enough.

~

I'm not what I say I am most days,
i could never give myself enough credit.
Grace is that love we never asked for:

I never asked for love because I didn't think I deserved it,
and I'd just as well learn to live alone.
But who I am to ask for anything less
than belonging to something. to someone.

no expression

A lot has happened since last time. Evidently.

Last Wednesday a friend and I went to my favorite resteraunt in Nanaimo - a romantic Mediterranean place built in a house downtown- only to find out it was closed down!!! Which was tough, being that it is the second of my two favorite resteraunts in Nanaimo shut down.

My first was an Italian place called "Milanos" that my mom used to cook for, which is now turned into a British style place. My friend and I were making fun of each other because I'm somewhat Italian and she is somewhat British.

At the Sheree Plett show there was about 4 people that showed up, which actually made the show really good. Halfway through her set I got to do a couple of my poems, like this one, and I was horribly awkward as usual. During the show my friend and I were drawing pictures of trees on a table.

Then, after 4 more days of waiting to see if I had a job, and wandering the streets of Nanaimo and Vancouver, I came home and found out that I have a job! I'm going to be a youth ministry intern from the next 13 weeks, starting Thursday. Thus beginning a new journal experience.

So far the extent of my preparation for this summer has been me buying Larvae snacks - wormy things that you can eat!!! I am a youth worker, after all.

Last night I made a feast, of sorts, in the tradition of "Babette's Feast" and "Big Night". It reminded me a lot of the weddings my Mom and I used to cater, making really good food for young brides and uptight bridesmaids (a stretch for most caterers I have seen).

It is always good trying to get a lot of friends together for a dinner, because it gives me that 2 or 3 hours to just be in the kitchen and cook. It is my way of making up for the fact that I cannot play guitar at all, and the fact that I take myself too seriously sometimes. Especially after traveling alone too much.

So that is where I am. I'm trying to sit down and write something concrete today, and not sit around the house. Though, that is starting to become a paradox, and a contradiction in my life, in many ways. A house is supposed to be a place of safety, of comfort and belonging. Though in western cultures "staying inside the house" has become tied to laziness, arrogance, and a lot of other things that really don't do anyone any good.

I don't understand this. I just know that I need my house to be a place of belonging, because I don't have much else in my life that exists for that sole purpose. And why does a house even exist if not to be a place where we can belong?

So thats my thought of the day. So far, I have nothing to do today, or tomorrow. We'll see.



(I stole this video from Amy, for the record).

grace eventually

I spent some time in chapters today, trying to find copies of The Ordering of the Heart by Madeleine L'Engle, The complete short stories of Flannery O'Conner, and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard.

But, alas, I couldn't find copies of any of those books. So instead I picked up "Grace Eventually" and "Ella Enchanted" (hey, stop laughing. that just happens to be a really nice book). I am addicted to books. I won't lie.

Then I walked over to The Buzz, and wrote this. Take care.

let go.

I sit quiet as in a calm blue pool,
like waves of jazz
from miles davis.

I let go as a kite in wind,
over the water
from the pacific ocean.

I quiet myself as if in a coffeehouse,
like a mug warming slowly
from earl gray tea.

I hold on to God as if alone,
like a newlywed
from a long separation.

or else, God holds on to me.
and this is all I can do to
keep myself from running away.

everyone around here

A long overdue entry or a long way gone.

I came into Nanaimo today, worn out and weathered from a weeks worth of walking. Just off the ferry- one of the new ones they just built- I kept walking and crashed in a park in downtown nanaimo, under the shade of a tree on a hill near a small beach.

In any case, I am skipping many many details here. So I will try, as caffeinated and awkward and obnoxious as I am right now, to write this story as interesting as possible.

This weekend I went to a "full gospel business men's" retreat in Kelowna,- which is not at all and never will be my style. I was there helping a friend set up worship services. It was actually quite enjoyable. All the men there talked about "the spirit" a lot, and spoke in tongues. I myself just walking around the lake, and talked a lot about being way too human.

I'm not going to find out whether or not I have a job until friday, So I jumped a bus to Kitsalano the next day to visit my friend and, essentially, run away from the constant sense of dread that comes with waiting.

A good 30 percent of my life, I have concluded, is spent waiting for something to happen.

At my friends house in Kits I tried to walk to the beach but I got lost, and walking an hour in the wrong direction. Eventually I found Kits beach, had two slices of pizza, wrote poems at a coffee house called "bean around the world" and watched the sun set into a wave of clouds and mountains, in several colors across a clear sky. Epic.

The next day... well, today, I took off from my friends house to Granville to find a bus to the ferries, and got lost again... then walked a half hour in the wrong direction, again, and missed my ferry.

Eventually, I came into Nanaimo, and therein my story comes full circle. In Nanaimo I tried to find some pizza downtown, to no avail. So I found a small bakery and ate three croissants. Then I visited a coffee place that sells "salt spring island" coffee, and then met up with a friend of mine.

After said coffee we drove to another coffeehouse I like called the buzz, and I had some tea and talked way too much because I was way too wired and worn down from travel.

What I'm finding out, since coming home, is that things that are commonplace in Vancouver- such as cheap pizza, concerts, art, and coffeehouses- are awkward here, for the most part.

Thus, I am on another random awkward journey, trying to escape my problems, as is the reason that many of mankind's greatest journeys have been taken.

In any case... I need to stop talking. I am really getting sick of the sound of my own voice. The next entry will a lot more relaxed. I will have simpler, more concise, stories to tell.

The alternative to this long and annoying blog entry, if you have chosen to skim my work up until this point, is the following summary list of things I have done in the past 6 days:

1) Attended men's retreat, with a bunch of pentecostal men.
2) Got lost in Kistalano Beach
3) Had pizza and coffee overlooking the ocean
4) Got lost in Granville
5) Fell asleep under a tree listening to Kid A in Nanaimo
6) Had coffee in Downtown Nanaimo.
7) Had tea in the North end of Nanaimo
8) Disliked myself for running away from my problems, and writing this effing long journal.

9) watched Bridget Jones 2.
10) Took a deep breathe, and went to bed.

Notes to self: Drink juice instead of tea. Write shorter entries. Stop making excuses. Sleep for more than 3 hours. purchase a german beer.

More, or less, to come.

once again

I might be going home this weekend, after going on a man's retreat (which is completely outside of my character... an entire weekend without girls is too long!), one of the reasons being that Sheree Plett, an artist I like to support, is playing in Nanaimo on Wednesday.

In any case, this, like much of my life, is very up in the air. I really am starting to get tired of this "about to go traveling" feeling. bah.

Here is a video I found that I really like. See you later.