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Lent Day 40 – 33 for me

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Tomorrow is Easter.  It feels like it’s been a fast 40 days.  I missed my target by a whole 7 days which is disappointing in one way, but in another way, I feel really glad.  I just went back to see how long it had taken me to complete the previous 33 posts prior to this Lent period, and it went back to March of 2016.  It took me almost exactly a year to complete what I have completed in the past month and a half.

That’s huge for me.

I feel at times that I need to make an effort not to write too much about the blog itself and about my writing process.  It feels a bit too inward focussed, but at the same time, I set out to make this blog a record of my search for joy and for fulfillment in this life, and it’s hard to deny that the effort to write this blog and to make it come to life is a big part of that quest for me.  If it was the only thing then it would, I assume, turn into one huge feedback loop that would be painful to listen to.

But as I blog my way through my life, the act of writing helps me to understand things.  It helps me to organize my thoughts and to see what it is that I’m doing and where I’m going.  My hope in this is also that somehow this will be of use to others – that in putting all this out there that other people will be able to read and to be encouraged and helped in their own journeys.

In the midst of all this is a parallel quest to figure out how it is that Jesus figures into all this.  For a very long time I have had great difficulty in knowing how to talk about my faith in a way that I feel people who don’t share that faith would be able to understand.  I have been uncertain how to talk about God and about Jesus when I am referencing entities who are invisible and spiritual.  I think that in many ways I have been wanting to find a concrete way to talk about realities that are not concrete…which I suppose by definition are realities only as far as I believe that they are.  I can’t prove them.  I can’t provide hard evidence to settle an argument.

I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of it.  I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of this.  I can speak about my experience of the world.  I can speak of my thoughts and my feelings.  I can speak about the way that I react to things and the way that I strive to relate to people.  Then I can talk about the way that my faith interacts with these things.  I can speak about the way that I sense the presence of God moving through these things and how I experience that presence through my thoughts and my feelings.

From there people who read my writings are free to make whatever judgments they choose.  They are free to reject them or to accept them.  They can respond to them however they like, but I’m also hoping that they will measure my words against they evidence they see from my life, as it shows in my writing and from any other sources where they might get wind of me.  Am I a person who loves – who shows mercy and grace?  Am I growing into a better person?  That’s really the bottom line.  They can laugh at me or call me a fool or shake their head for my backwards acceptance of spiritual nonsense, but can they find evidence that shows I am a hypocrite or a charlatan?  Can they point to my life and say that I am a poor representative of the God I say that I love and believe in?

Almost certainly there are people who can find those things in my past that reflect poorly on me and on my faith, but the aim of all this is that those things would become fewer and farther between, and it’s not just about me really trying hard to become a nicer person because I’ve reached the conclusion that those efforts don’t really take me very far.  It’s about reaching for and holding on to the presence of God in my life and allowing it to move me and to transform me from the inside out.

It’s a bit scary to tout myself as evidence of the truth of God because if that’s the way it works then is there any hope of humanity being able to maintain any faith and hope in God?  If Christians are the evidence of the presence of God in this world then is there any hope?  But I think that’s the thing – certainly there are many examples of bad Christians who lie and manipulate and give Jesus a bad name, but there are also many shining examples of people who have followed in the footsteps of Jesus and it is these people who are the reason that Christianity still carries on to this day in any positive form.

And that’s what I want to be a part of.  That’s what I’m striving for.  A friend asked me what my blog was about – what am I trying to convey or say from post to post.  In one way that was discouraging because it shows that it’s not completely clear what I’m doing here (I’m working on it!) but it was also helpful to remind me to think that through and to continue trying to make it clear until it’s apparent to everyone who comes here.

This is what this blog is for – I am striving to find that place of sweet solid ground, and in so doing I want to share how that sweet solid ground is found smack in the middle of the presence of God.  It is found in the midst of the good times and in the midst of the bad times but always in the footsteps of Jesus, and my hope is that as I do this – as I strive for this, it will become clear that there is something true to my words that goes way behind anything that any old snake-oil salesman has to offer.

God/hope/Jesus/Lent/worship

Lent Day 39 – 32 for me

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Good Friday is coming to an end, and I have to admit that Good Friday is one of my favourite days of the year.  It has been a good Good Friday.  The weather was remarkable and it was a day to take a breath after a very very busy week.

I started this week looking forward to spending it reflecting on Jesus in the approach to Easter, and I ended up missing three posts as I scrambled to get everything done that I needed to get done.

There are busy weeks, and my weeks are generally busy as is typical for a lot of people these days, but this was one of those weeks that was busy in an atypical way.  There’s a routine busyness that is familiar and manageable because it is known and expected.  This week was filled with surprises and breaks from my schedule that were not familiar at all, and that can cause stress.

I think I mentioned in my last post about some of those things that turned my week into an unusually busy one, so I won’t dwell on that further, but I have to say that this afternoon felt gloriously relaxed with all of my pressing tasks completed for the week.  I have to take the kids to swimming lessons and go grocery shopping tomorrow – so familiar – piece of cake.  I love it.

This was also the fourth Good Friday in a row that I have led the service at our church and I love this service.  There is a very distinctive feeling to Good Friday that is unique to all other special celebrations I know of in the Christian church.  It is a moment to slow down and to reflect on the death of Christ and how much it means to us and also how much of a sacrifice it was for Jesus.

The death of Jesus is rendered almost meaningless without his resurrection…I think.  To consider what it might have meant if God’s son had died for the sins of the world and had stayed dead is the kind of speculative theology that I’m not sure I would be good at, or that is even useful to engage in.

My gut feeling on this is that the death of Jesus was payment for the sin of the world – one giant sacrificial offering, but it was his resurrection from the dead that paved the way for us to do the same one day and to follow him into the riches of Eden that were prepared for us from the beginning.

But my point here is that although it’s really hard to consider the meaning of Jesus’ death apart from his resurrection, we all know that he came back from the dead, and because we know that, we are able to take a day just to focus on his death and to meditate on the gravity of that event before we enter into the celebration of his resurrection.

His death meant something.  It was not easy and it was not honourable, and it came about not on some divine whim but as a result of the perpetual failure of humanity to do the right thing.  To remember Good Friday is to enter into the full expression of human weakness and ineptitude and to marvel at the fact that God picked up the cheque simply because he loves us.

I also love the songs I can choose.  I find that I tend towards some of the older gospel songs.  I think that there isn’t any more beautiful hymn than Near the Cross and I get to indulge that on Good Friday.  I was tempted to do The Old Rugged Cross but I was worried that people would think I was being indulgent.  There’s a version of The Old Rugged Cross by Bart Millard that I think is brilliant and I feel like if you can do it that way you would earn the right to do that song on any Sunday of the year, but I’m not sure I can do it like that.  I need the steel guitar.

I also like to include Psalm 22 in the service and when I read that whole Psalm in the context of Good Friday it gives me chills.  It sounds as if it’s a Psalm that was written about Jesus after he’d died and come back to life, but when I realize that it was written hundreds of years before it makes my head spin a little.  It’s not so much the details like the casting of lots for his clothes, but it’s the second part of the Psalm that talks about what is to come – ending with the line “he has done it”.  It sounds like a Psalm of praise to Jesus.  I think it’s astonishing.  I think it’s one of the most amazing Psalms.

You can read through the story of Good Friday with this whole huge mountain of dramatic irony hanging like a sunburst behind the clouds.  It’s an utterly horrid account of injustice and cruelty, but we know that it turns completely upside down in a glorious twist of divine deliverance and so we can endure the horror of it all so much differently than if we didn’t know what we do.

It’s perhaps why there was so much criticism of Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ.  It was certainly a violent violent movie – I would suggest unnecessarily so, but the criticism from many many people who didn’t believe that this was a story about a man who rose from the dead was probably much fiercer than if they had that perspective of how it all turned out.  If you don’t share that hope and that sense of dramatic irony, it all seems shockingly disgusting by a factor of 100 or more.  I think criticism of the violence of it was certainly justified, but there’s a way you approach it that is different when you have that belief in the resurrection that followed.

Jesus is amazing in so many ways, and for me Good Friday is one of my favourite days just to bask in the depth and the richness of his greatness.  He is the embodiment of hope in the midst of any and every instance of suffering this world can throw at us.

 

failure/hope/this site/time/Uncategorized

Lent Day 37 – 31 for me

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I just missed two days in a row.  I actually have two unfinished posts in my drafts folder, one titled Lent Day 35, and another Lent Day 36.  Now I’ve started Lent Day 37.  I’m going to finish this one.

The past two days were unusually full.  I’ve recently become a member of the Board at my church and we had our first meeting on Monday – it went into the wee hours – well, past midnight anyway, which isn’t really the wee hours, but it’s later than you would expect a board meeting to go.  Lots of big stuff to decide.  It’s a bit of a crucial time at our church, which is why I decided to take it on.  I want to be a part of it. But it didn’t leave any time for me to finish the post I started in the morning.

Then yesterday I left early to drive to London (Ontario) which is two hours away.  I had a meeting to attend for work, which is very unusual, but not unprecedented.  Then once I got back to Toronto and returned the car, I needed to race home so that I could drive back the way I came, but this time to Hamilton so that my son and I could help out a friend with some video footage he is shooting for a touring one-man show he is putting together.

That one went until after eleven which meant that we didn’t get home until after midnight.  My son was so exhausted but he had a blast.  He certainly enjoyed the on-camera work.  It’s always kind of fun to do that stuff, but when he wasn’t needed in the studio, he could sit in the green room and watch TV shows and eat snacks.  That was the real bonus of the whole thing, and it was a really big TV too.  When we watch movies at home we always watch it on our laptop which is decidedly small, even for a TV.

So I didn’t get to finish the post I started yesterday either, although to be honest, there wasn’t really much there to speak of.  I got up to write, but my wife’s parents are visiting and my father-in-law was in the kitchen so I ended up chatting with him which was nice since I wasn’t finding much time elsewhere to spend with them, what with my late nights and going to work.

On top of that I’m trying to find time to nail things down for the Good Friday service on Friday (the fact that the Good Friday service would be on Friday should go without saying, but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence without saying it).

I feel like it’s understandable, but losing two days like that makes me feel a bit grumpy.  It leaves me feeling frustrated about my lack of time, and then for some strange reason when I actually sit down to write, I don’t want to write.  It’s like I have a hard time facing the missed posts.  I feel like I have nothing to write.

I’ve heard it said that success breeds success, and I supposed that failure would then breed failure, but I find that losing ground breeds discouragement and it leaves you feeling like falling farther behind.  So in those cases if you’re going to make progress, sometimes it requires an exertion of will.  When I feel like I don’t want to write because I’m only going to write garbage, then sometimes I need to write some garbage.

It’s like those times when you have to let the tap run for a bit in order to get to the clean water.  Now I’m not saying that this post is garbage – maybe not my best, but it’s something.  I think the beauty of writing or of talking or of singing or whatever it might be that gets your brain moving, is that the act of doing it clears that rusty water out of the pipes.  It clears those negative and discouraged thoughts out of the pipes.  That’s what this post is – just writing it cleared my head of all that junk – hopefully the junk didn’t all end up on the page, but at least it’s out of my head.

I had a full and an interesting couple of days but it left me feeling and tired and down, so it’s good to remember that in those times, it’s much better to let the water flow rather than letting it stagnate in the pipes.

I was really excited about blogging through some thoughts on Jesus as I approach Easter, but for now, I just needed to clear the pipes and I have to say that as I reach the end of this post and the prospect of getting it up, I feel much better already.

God/Jesus/Lent/love/relationship

Lent Day 34 – 30 for me

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It’s 10:30 on Sunday night and I sat down to quickly finish the post that I began on Saturday.  It was one paragraph long.  Somehow I had convinced myself that I had begun a lengthy post and all I needed was a little time to complete it.  Sigh.

But I was set on posting something, so post something I will.  I was going to start this week by posting some thoughts on Jesus and his life and his death.  It seemed like the perfect way to mark this week.  Blogging through Lent has been such a blessing to me, but I haven’t actually spent any time blogging about Lent itself, so I thought it would be a brilliant opportunity to do that.

When I think of Lent and Holy Week (the week leading up to Easter) I think about the stories.  I think about the stories of Jesus’ life and how it culminates in his arrival in Jerusalem, his celebration of the Passover with his disciples, his night of anguished prayer in the garden, his arrest, his trial, his death and then his resurrection.

But I think that I would like to spend this week talking more about the resurrected Jesus – the Jesus that is much harder to see and much harder to grasp because he no longer walks among us in a human body.  He is spirit.

I have heard stories about Jesus appearing to people in dreams and in visions.  I have heard stories about people seeing a man in a vision who they later find out is Jesus even though they’d never heard of Jesus when they saw the vision.  But I don’t have any remarkable stories like that to share.

My experience of the risen Jesus has been much less concrete and much more intangible.  It seems to me strange to talk about a dream or a vision as being tangible, but even though it isn’t something that can be touched and experienced with the physical senses, it is something that is experienced through the imagination in the mind and this can be so powerful at times as to be almost concrete.

My experience has been the kind of felt experience that comes from within in such a way that it is only through faith that I can even say that it is Jesus.  I cannot answer questions like, “What did he look like?” or “What did he say?”  I can only say how I felt and how it changed me or moved me.

I’ve always felt underwhelmed by this experience of mine because I recognize that it is not as compelling as a more concrete experience, such as a dream or a vision or some miraculous encounter.  On the other hand, unless there is some kind of evidence of such an experience these types of experiences leave anyone open to simply be disbelieved.  Anybody can lie about a dream or a vision, and I’m sure that there are people who do.

So, really, once Jesus has left this earth (as he has) the strength of our testimony about our experience of him is very tenuous.  It is always subject to being believed or not believed, and so as I write this I find myself coming back to one of the things that Jesus said to his disciples before he died as recorded in the gospel of John.

It’s in chapter 13 where there is a long record of all the things that Jesus said to his disciples on the night when he celebrated the Passover with them prior to his death – the Last Supper as it is known.  It is a beautiful passage that I love dearly, and one of the things that Jesus says is that, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Jesus speaks to this whole problem with real clarity.  The problem of our credibility as far as our experience of the risen Jesus is solved by a very simple (if not easy) thing – how we love each other.  You might interpret this to mean that Jesus is saying that people will know his disciples in the way that the love everyone around them, but you could also make a strong case that he’s not even talking about it so broadly – he’s actually suggesting that people will recognize them as his disciples simply by the way that they love each other.

So maybe my experience of Jesus is based on feeling and my own personal subjective experience, but how do I love my brothers and sisters?  How do I love my fellow disciples?  When you walk into my church and see the way that I interact with my fellow members and all the people who are a part of my church, what do you see?

It’s a bit of a scary thought when you think about the way that we can treat each other at times.  How badly do we treat the members of our own families sometimes?  Our testimony of Jesus and how he has changed us is only as effective to the degree that we love one another.  You may not be able to believe the things I tell you about how I have encountered Jesus and what he is done for me, but you can see for yourself how I treat the real people in this real world and that is the thing that will speak the loudest of all.

We put a lot of value in people who know how to talk – people who know how to tell a story.  Christians have often put great stock in the preachers of this world who know how to raise the rafters and hold a congregation captive, and there’s certainly good things about people who can do that, but that’s not really the most important thing, is it?  It’s much more about the way that we love each other, and for all those people who aren’t so good at talking, that must come as a great relief, because it’s something we all can do in our own way and in our own lives.

We introduce Jesus to others by loving each other in the way that Jesus loved his disciples – and that’s a lot, in case you weren’t sure.

God/hope/life and death/Uncategorized/war

Lent Day 33 – 29 for me

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So, I didn’t want to write about Syria two days ago and I still don’t want to write about it, but it seems odd to pass over the US bombing that started last night when I’ve just spent the last two posts talking about movement and action.

There’s a part of me that hears about the bombing of the airbase and I feel glad.  It’s satisfying to know that it’s been destroyed, but then I see the statements from Russia and from Syria and there is a sense of foreboding.  Where is this going?  Part of me is wondering why, if the US was going to engage with the Syrian government, they didn’t do it years ago.  It doesn’t seem likely that they’ll stop after destroying one base.  How is this going to affect the people in Syria?  I saw one tweet from a Syrian who is deeply grateful, so I’m sure that there are many many people who will be glad at the prospect of the US standing up to Assad.

But there is the issue of Russia.  Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t backed by Russia.  Makes me feel a bit queasy.

I grew up in a pacifist church.  The denomination is called the Brethren in Christ.  Many American members of BIC churches have refused in the past to serve in the army as conscientious objectors.  I always loved the stories of how these people took their stand for what they believed to be right – refusing to kill – refusing to do anything but try to love their enemies.  I do not think that these men (and women?) who took this stand were lauded and appreciated for it.  It was not a popular thing to do.  Some of them went to prison.

I often think about it, “what if everyone had been a conscientious objector?”  Civil disobedience worked well in the civil rights movement – it seems to work well when working against oppression, but what about aggression?  What would have happened in Europe in World War II if the Allies had laid down their arms and refused to fight?  The answer seems obvious.  I think it’s clear.

But on the other hand, a commitment to pacifism is not necessarily a commitment to do nothing and to surrender.  There are other forms of resistance.  I will be honest that I cannot imagine what an effective resistance might have looked like during WWII.  There was the French resistance of course, but I do not think theirs was a non-violent resistance inspired by pacifism.

You need to be under attack to be able to contemplate a resistance of some kind.  It’s much harder to resist when you’re across the ocean.  It’s much harder to stand with those who resist when there is a great distance.

Going back to the example of my children – it is always much harder to have any productive work towards peace when the fighting and the resentment has already begun.  The best and the most fruitful work happens when things are good.

But it’s a long history and I’m not sure how far you’d have to go back to find when things were good in Syria.  This civil war began with mostly peaceful protests by the people, and things escalated once the government tried to suppress the demonstrations with violence and imprisonment.  What do you do with a tyrant?  What do you do with a human who is past the point of empathy?  Who is unwilling to listen or to negotiate?

It’s much easier to say “Give peace a chance,” than it is to actually make it happen.  It’s easy to look at the air strikes and the bombings and to say that they’re not working or that they’re not leading to anything good…and it really doesn’t seem like they are – not to peace anyway, but when faced with the prospect of trying to come up with some other solution that might actually lead to something good is far far harder.

I can only say with certainty that to give up and to turn away and forget will mean that nothing changes, at least not if that’s what we all do.

***

I started this post in the morning and now I come to it at the end of the day.  I offer no answers.  I also have read that the base that was bombed wasn’t destroyed.  There were Syrian jets that used it today to conduct airstrikes on rebel held areas.

I also heard convincing arguments that the images of people who have died from chemical weapons are so much more affecting than the images of people who have died from non-chemical weapons because news agencies will show them.  They don’t show the photographs where people have lost limbs and have been blown to bits.  The images of people who have died from chemical weapons may be more moving because we actually see them.  The civilian victims of conventional bombing are unseen.

There is much that we don’t see in this world that would move us to despair if we were to see it, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t there.  I’m not sure what I’m saying here, except to say that there is much in this world that cannot be solved without years and years and dedicated time and attention.  If a night’s bombing serves only to make people feel as if something “has been done” then it is a waste.  I don’t know.  Maybe there was some value to it.

On the one hand, it seems strange that images of one attack that catch the public’s attention suddenly make people here feel that something must be done after years and years of the same thing.  But on the other hand that image of the boy washing up on the beach inspired so many people to pursue refugee sponsorship, and that is a good thing.

The fact that we have begun to care is a good thing.  Just because many of us didn’t care adn didn’t even know for so long doesn’t make this wrong.  The fact that we have been moved is a start, but we can’t be fooled into thinking that the simple answers will be the ones that make a true difference.  Real progress is slow and probably not as satisfying in the short term as seeing a military base destroyed.  I know for myself that I stand here feeling pretty powerless, but determined to keep caring, to keep praying and to believe that with God’s guidance and love, that there is hope in this.

God/hope/Uncategorized/war

Lent Day 32 – 28 for me

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First off, if the tone of my post yesterday was more bleak than hopeful, that wasn’t my intention.  It is always better to do research first and lament later.  I think I may have unintentionally written the “why isn’t anyone doing anything?” post without actually looking into the question of whether people are doing anything.  Of course they are.

So I guess if caring is the first step, then research is the next one.  I’ve already found a Catholic organization with a campaign called “Peace is Possible in Syria”.  It seems promising – it’s promoting advocacy to government and awareness.  They have information.  Nothing about bombing.  Of course there isn’t.

Now, my plan with this post is not to provide a list of resources on helping out with Syria from some research I just did five minutes ago.  I’m sure you’re quite capable of doing that yourself if that’s something that interests you.

As always with my posts, it’s more about my own process – it’s about how I move from one place and try to get to a better place.  I do strive to do that in a way that might be useful.  I’m sure it isn’t for everyone, but that’s the beauty of the internet, there is endless space to find your niche.  If you’d rather read the musings of someone who knows what to do and is doing it, then I get it.  I wish I was there.

I think that the danger in beginning to care about these humanitarian disasters is that focussing on the ideal outcome can bring despair, because it seems impossible.  In anything, the only thing we can do is to focus on the next step, whatever that might be and as long as it is pointing towards the ideal outcome we can make progress.

From a number of angles it may seem ridiculous for a person living in Canada to talk about becoming involved in working for peace in Syria, and I can see that, but at the same time, the world is a very complex place.  There are relationships globally between Canada and many countries and any pressure that one person can put on those actors here in Canada can multiply as more and more people engage.  How much influence does the Canadian government have in Syria and the Middle East?  I don’t know, but all you can hope for is growth, and eventually movement.

So I think you begin in that place of seeing something and being moved by it, and I want to try to avoid the hopelessness and the easy option of just moving on and letting the immediacy of my own life in front of me bury those feelings.  I’ve said before that if I’m looking for sweet solid ground, then in one way or another that’s what everybody is looking for, although they would all describe it differently I am sure.  People in Syria are looking for that same thing.

I’m not sure if I would feel comfortable saying that about Bashar al-Assad.  He must be looking for something.  Maybe he’s found something – his power and his wealth, and he’s so intent on keeping it that’s lost sight of everything else around him.  It would be easy to assume that he’s unhappy, or living in fear.  But maybe the power and the struggle to maintain it acts like a drug.  I don’t know.  Was Stalin a happy man?

But certainly, the craving of the human heart is for something – something good, and it’s so clear that there are so many people over there who are hard-pressed to be able to think about that.  They’re just struggling to survive, and somehow I feel like my own search for sweet solid ground needs to take that into account.  I’m not sure exactly how that’s going to work, but I feel like caring is the first step and learning is the second, and as I learn I can begin to move and to act.

It’s a great comfort to know that there are already so many who are moving and acting.  There are many amazing things that are already happening in various ways, and although it is the death and the struggle that seems to hit the headlines, the stories of what is growing on the ground are out there, and they can be found and they can be told.

There are millions and millions and millions of us out there and over there, and God who gives us life is the one who is over us all, and if the task seems daunting, we can take heart in the fact that if we were all to do our part, our part would not need to change the world on its own, just fall into place of the bigger picture.  We’re so far from it at the moment – so, so far.  It’s going to take so much more than a song, or a march, or a blog post, but it’s about movement.  It’s about beginning to see and to go in the right direction…whatever that might be.

There’s going to be a lot of bad news in the coming months, but there is hope.  There is always hope.  If anyone asks me what I can always count on from God, it is hope.  It may be dwarfed by the obstacles, but all we can do is make our way from where we are.

 

 

discontent/healing/hope/Uncategorized/war

Lent Day 31 – 27 for me

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I’m having a little difficulty settling on something to write about today.  I find myself thinking about Syria, but I don’t really want to write about that.  One of the byproducts of following the Trump administration is that I get caught up on a lot of other current events as they happen, and I saw a lot of links to stories today about the chemical attack that killed dozens of civilians in Syria.

It’s troubling and it’s disturbing.  The images are so heartbreaking, and I must admit that I do want to know about these things but I’m not sure what to do with the knowledge.  As a person who is hard-pressed to contain my outrage when someone runs a red light it’s hard to know what to with the knowledge that there is someone out there who is giving the go-ahead to drop a nerve agent in an area that’s certain to kill people who are just trying to survive?

And as I write this I’m suddenly aware that I’m not even sure why this bomb was dropped.  It was dropped by the government but on who?  I have to suppose that it’s a rebel held city, but I don’t even know for sure.  I’ve read up on what’s going on in Syria, but it gets so foggy.  After Aleppo was taken, I think that it was easy to forget or to overlook that the war wasn’t over.  It continues.  What is even going on?

Then there’s Russia, and ISIS plays a role somehow.  Then of course the US plays a part, and every so often I hear about the drone strikes in Yemen.  Apparently the attacks have escalated under Trump and the number of civilians dying in these strikes is increasing.  Different conflicts, but equally troubling.

So on the one hand there are chemical attacks by the Syrian government killing civilians in northern Syria, and on the other hand there are regular, non-chemical bombs by US drones killing civilians in Yemen.  I know that it’s not just civilians.  I know that these attacks are not intended to kill civilians…at least that’s my assumption.

I knew why I didn’t want to write about this.

I’m also very aware of the way that I compartmentalize these things.  I am troubled by these things, but at the same time they are horrors that happen “over there”.  I do not intend to compartmentalize in this way, but I must be honest that the news of a bomb in a marketplace in Turkey horrifies me far less than the news of a bomb blowing up in a crowd at the Boston Marathon.  That sort of bomb is closer to home and so, just as the saying goes, it feels more real.  I’m not content with this.  So why do I need to work to be moved by the things that happen so far away?

But those photographs today did move me and I feel like I want to do something about it, but short of donating some money, I’m not sure what that might be.  It’s easy to feel helpless.  There must be a way to somehow get underneath all the rancour and the hate and to heal some of those wounds and to lessen the desire to kill and to maim.  What can be done?

That’s certainly one of the frustrating things – this sense that somehow the United States or NATO or the United Nations can do something to stop these things, as if they could just go in and kick Assad out and then it would be all better.  But it just doesn’t work very well.  It didn’t work in Korea, or Vietnam.  There’s still fighting in Afghanistan.  There’s still fighting in Iraq.  The bombing in Yemen is to go after Al Qaeda, and then there’s ISIS.  The United Nations were in Rwanda during the genocide and really couldn’t or didn’t do a thing.

I suppose these wars can achieve immediate goals like a toppling a regime but it never seems to be that simple.  The roots go far deeper.

These conflicts are not easily stopped.  It’s hard to make people stop fighting.  I have a hard time getting my three children to be civil to each other, and that may sound like a joke, but when you think about it, if it’s a challenge to make peace between three children who are well cared for, well-loved, well-fed, part of the same family, part of the same religion, then what does that say about peace in general between nations?  Maybe not much.  Maybe it’s a bad comparison.

But I also don’t find it acceptable to just shrug my shoulders and say, “Oh well.”  How can we just do nothing?  So for now we’ll donate some money to a humanitarian organization.  Later this year we’ll look into refugee sponsorship.

The options for action may look bleak, but unless we find it within ourselves to actually care about what is happening, then there will be no hope for change at all, so I suppose we can start by caring even if it may feel bewildering.  We can start by letting these images move us, as they should, and then perhaps, by the grace of God, we may begin to come up with new ideas and new strategies for peace – to bring people together – to calm hostilities.

It’s hard to imagine that humanity could ever get onto the same page, but maybe if we could at least figure out how to do our own part – how to love our own enemies – even if they’re the ones within our own homes, then we might begin to at least see a way forward.

 

internet/relationship/sports/Uncategorized

Lent Day 30 – 26 for me

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Yesterday was opening day in Major League Baseball.  I heard through the grapevine that the Blue Jays were playing.  I saw it written on the front page of a newspaper as I walked out of the grocery store.

I also saw that the score was 2-2 in the ninth while I was writing in Tim Horton’s last night.  I could so easily check the score.  It would take me only ten seconds or less.  I would see that they had lost or that they had won.  If they’d lost I probably would have been able to move on without any trouble, but if they’d won, I might have wanted to see the boxscore – who pitched?  How did they do?  How did they score their runs?  Who took the place of Edwin Encarnacion?

Then I might have wanted to take a look at the boxscore for the Cleveland game, if there was one, to see how Encarnacion did for his new team.  I thought it was so bad that they couldn’t re-sign him.

But, you see, if I had checked there would be a distinct possibility that I would start to care again and that would just pull me in.  I would start to get to know the team and I would begin to follow them again.  I really don’t want to do that again, at least I don’t want that to be something that’s fighting for my time and causing me mood swings.

As far as time goes, I really don’t think that I’ve done myself any huge favours by giving up my close following of sports, because I’ve just replaced it with following the news about the Trump administration.  That’s a whole other thing.  There’s always something.  I will continue to work at that regardless of what is distracting me.

The one thing that is definitely a huge plus with this abandoning of sports is the absence of the emotional roller coaster.  I’m not experiencing the thrills of amazing victories, but the truth of it all is that there are far more frustrating losses than there are thrilling victories, and when you get wrapped up in it like I do, it’s just not worth it.

There’s enough to be frustrated about in life as it is, why would I want to add something else into the mix to mess with my moods?

I feel like there’s one thing I could be missing by turning my back on sports, and that is the community aspect.  There’s something to be said about belonging to something with a shared history and being a sports fan is one of these things.  That’s one of the things that made the Cubs World Series victory so special – those long-suffering fans who had truly hung in there for all those years – their whole lives for many of them – suddenly had a moment of catharsis of a truly momentous nature.  It’s something they will all be able to hold on to for a very long time.

That’s the thing about these victories – when they happen they can be tucked away and held on to.  I have that with the World Series victories by the Blue Jays.  Those are truly special moments and I can look back on them with a smile no matter what happens.  But I also shared them with other people.  It wasn’t just me on my own.

It hasn’t been like that in the recent past.  I wasn’t sharing sports with anyone anymore.  It could be something I could talk about every once in a while with someone of a like mind, but those moments were infrequent.  For the most part the internet allowed me to make my enjoyment of sports a very solitary activity and there’s not much to be missed about that.

I think the internet can do that with a lot of things.  It’s certainly easy to do.  There’s so much to be found and to absorb your attention out there.  But it’s also something that can be true of other things – books, video games, listening to music.  When something becomes isolating, it doesn’t matter what it is, it can be let go and maybe it should be – at least for a time.

That was sports for me.  That’s for certain.  Just another place to get lost and distracted.

It will be interesting to see how I feel as the playoffs begin in basketball and in hockey.  The Raptors are already in and the Leafs look like they will be in as well.  It’s hard to get excited about the Raptors when there are a few dominant teams so far ahead that it’s hard to imagine them going all the way.  It’s the same with the Leafs, but they’re a young team with some exciting young players.  There’s a sense of anticipation with them.  If they came out fighting in the first round it could be very alluring.

But if it’s just going to be me and the computer, I don’t want it.  If I’m going to get roped in, I don’t want to give in unless it’s because the kids somehow get excited or a group of friends.  There’s a place for these things, but I think I’m going to draw the line unless there’s some real human relationships involved.

discontent/hope/joy/Uncategorized

Lent Day 29 – 25 for me

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Following up from yesterday’s post, I had this really great moment at the passport office today.  I was dropping applications for two of my kids and my wife.  It’s easy enough for me to bike down from work over lunch, so it’s a good job for me.

So I got up to the “triage” window to get my number and I found out that I need to actually have my kids’ birth certificates with me.  It’s not enough for me to fill in the registration numbers on the application form – they actually need to verify that the documents are real.  What’s up with that?!

So I was done there with my applications having biked down and even if I couldn’t complete my kids’ applications I could still complete my wife’s application.  It was very frustrating.  But I took the number and sat down.  I knew that the smart thing to do would be to leave and come back tomorrow rather than wait for however long on both days, but it’s hard for me to let go.  I came down there to wait, and it’s hard just to leave.  Maybe it would be worthwhile to submit at least one application.

So, it took me about five minutes watching the numbers tick down to come to terms with the situation and I got up to leave.  Why wait twice?  But I couldn’t help but imagine the scene when my number came up and everyone would look around and wonder where C312 had gotten to?  I wonder how long they wait before they move on?  It seemed like it would be a waste of somebody’s time even if it was only thirty seconds, so I thought I would let the guy who gives out the numbers know that I was leaving.  It seemed like a thoughtful thing to do.

But when I told him I was leaving, he said to me, “Don’t do that.  If you go up and submit your one application, the clerk will give you a piece of paper that can get you past the line tomorrow.”

What?!  Who knew?

How great is that?  So I waited for my number to come and completed the one application and got my golden ticket for my other two and I was on my way.  It was like this little gift.  It was just like what I was talking about yesterday.  Instead of leaving with a dark cloud and having to wait for however many minutes tomorrow, I left feeling light and happy with a ticket to go to the front of the line tomorrow.

It’s the small things.  Somehow it’s the small things that carry the day.  They really don’t affect the course of your life but they bring a little sunshine along the way and it can get you from A to B with a smile.  I’m not sure how that works when a person is in the midst of a seriously devastating situation.  I guess I’m wondering if there are states of mind where these little gifts have no impact.  I would suppose that there would be a sorrow or a grief that would be so raw that nothing could touch it, but I also know that there can be laughter in the midst of tears.

I was aware yesterday that I felt a little bit like I might be inferring that all can be solved by simply learning to appreciate the little gifts in life.  But I know that this isn’t true.  If there is a stone in my shoe, I do not solve this problem by appreciating the loonie (Canadian dollar coin) I find on the sidewalk.  I take the stone out of my shoe.  But if the pain in my feet is a chronic ailment that cannot be easily fixed in a moment, then finding that loonie can bring some joy to a moment.  It brings a moment of a light into whatever the status quo might be.

Maybe that’s the key – maybe it’s about status quo – whether status quo is opulent abundance or meager scarcity, there’s a level to which our mood or our sense of well-being depends on the ups and downs of our current moment to moment existence.

So if we can learn to see all those moments of grace – those ordinary gifts, then our sense of happiness increases.  There really is an element of vision to how we do this.  We live our lives from moment to moment – doing our best to fulfill our goals, to do our work, to improve our situation, to take care of ourselves and those in our care – whatever it might be, we go through our days doing the things that we must do, and as we do, the way that we observe the flow makes all the difference to how we experience it all.

It’s not an easy thing to do.  The ordinary gifts can be few and far between some days.  We can find ourselves walking through a barren landscape some days.  I’ll have to see how I do when it comes to one of those days.  Whenever that might come, I’m just glad that for today I was able to leave that passport office with a smile today.

 

discontent/joy/life and death

Lent Day 28 – Day 24 for me

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Today was an absolutely gorgeous day…and I spent it mostly inside.  We got the kids out to the park for a brief moment which was lovely.  It was the kind of day that would have been a scorcher in July, but in March lets you stand in a warm breeze in just a sweater and feel toasty in the sunshine.

We had previous plans to go with my sister-in-law’s family to see Beauty and the Beast, which was a big treat.  I remember going to see movies in the theatre when I was a kid.  It always felt like a big deal, and it still does.  I still love watching all the movie trailers, although I was a little put off by the seemingly endless stream of car commercials at the beginning of Rogue One.

It’s a pretty luxurious life when we can complain about commercials at the beginning of a movie.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and make you feel bad about feeling discontent in the midst of a really privileged life.  I find that shaming people into making changes, even if it’s a very subtle shaming, is pretty ineffective.  We’re enormously privileged, and on the whole it hasn’t translated into enormous happiness.  This is the way of our privileged world.  We have to do with that what we will.

I just wish sometimes I could walk through my world and my life and be awed with all that I have.  Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could wake up every day and experience every good thing in life as if we had just received it in the most serendipitous of circumstances?

I know we don’t experience things this way, but wouldn’t be great if we could re-live the joy of discovery with all of our blessings, like the way we receive the best gift, only we experience it every day.

That’s why I love to find things that are lost.  I hate losing things.  I find it very frustrating to know that something I had within my grasp only moments before is now out of my grasp and may not ever be in my grasp again.  I even hate losing a pair of mittens – or especially just one of them.  I spend more time than I should looking for insignificant things, but I just know how great I feel when I find them.  I know that often these things would be gone forever if I didn’t go back to look for them.

There was one time when one of my kids dropped a plastic bugs bunny toy in the grocery store and so I went back in to look for it.  We found it.  I was very pleased.  This is not a necessary thing.  It’s not really a good use of time, but I knew that it was in there, and if I didn’t go in then, we would never get it back, and ever after, I always felt a little twinge of pleasure when I saw that bugs bunny toy – I don’t know where it is now.  But I remember it.  I remember these things.

Maybe one of the reasons that I will sometimes go back to look for these things is that I don’t easily forget them, even if I ought to.  I remember these lost bugs bunny toys, and they bug me sometimes.  I hate losing things, but when I find them, man, I love that.

Little pleasures.

But what about the big things?  Sometimes I come home and I look at my house and I marvel that I own a house.  Even in its seeming perpetual state of renovation and space issues, I think it’s remarkable that I actually own a piece of property in this city, and it’s dry when it rains and it’s warm when it’s cold outside.

Sometimes it’s a matter of imagination.  If I think about what it might be like to be without a house – what if our house fell down?  What if there was some kind of terrible stroke of misfortune that forced us to sell the house and to move to a tiny little apartment.  I would miss this house something awful.

Sometimes when I have a close encounter on my bike or in the car I imagine what it could be like if I’d actually gotten into the accident I just narrowly missed.  What if the van bent around another car’s rear-end, or what if I was lying groaning on the pavement with a mangled bicycle by my side.  Even if it was just a little accident I would be stuck at the side of the road waiting for the police.

When I drive away from those near-misses, sometimes I think to myself, “I’m not at the side of the road.  I’m on my way none the worse for wear.”  Suddenly the day feels a little bit better.  I imagine myself sitting at the side of the road cursing my rotten luck and wishing somehow that I’d been able to avoid this…and as I imagine it, I think to myself, “That’s what this moment is.  I’m in that moment I’d be desperately wishing for if I’d been hit.  This ordinary moment is actually another moment’s wish come true, and what a great thing that is!”

There’s a lot to feel discontent about.  There are so many things to lament.  People could be so much kinder and generous to each other in so many different ways…myself included…but that’s just one area of life.  There’s also another area where there is a big stack of wonderful, lovely, good things, and wouldn’t it be lovely if we could always feel the good of those things – if we could savour what it means to have them all the time.

Just talking about it makes me feel excited about being alive.  I love that.