stressful times

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Psalm 42

I covet prayer. I desire prayers said. Iris needs a covering of prayer as the situation at home comes to a very difficult point.

I'm so stressed that I left home leaving the front door open all afternoon Monday. I'm stretched caring deeply about a situation thousands of miles away. There I am the the cause or a key factor of so much pain. Here I'm stretched as Auntie Mary has the big C again and I'm called to make decisions about the future and her care. So where is my God?

All I can hold is simple hope. Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

Clearing and Decluttering

I think I've cleared around a thousand books and I still cannot achieve the ten percent open space that this video suggests. But then again I've gotten rid of 4 book cases already.

Day 13 - 20/20 Home Cure - Fall 2010 from maxwell gillingham-ryan on Vimeo.

I need to reclaim space so that I can welcome Iris and have space for her and truly nurturing space for our life together.

Stress and Strain of feeding

Another week has gone by. Now I'm trying to squeeze a visit to the hospital each day. Aunt Mary is improving - sitting up in bed and feeding herself. But she is picky and not eating anywhere enough food. Tonight I asked the nursing station to order 2 puddings preferably chocolate. The trouble is no-one has enough time to note how much food she is actually eating. Half a cup of turnip perhaps a few small pieces of meat, 1 tablespoon of mashed potato some juice, and a pudding is not enough. The trouble is chewing and swallowing demands too much effort for her. But she also has no appetite except for good tasting food. So I had to mix margarine and black pepper with the turnip and she was more willing to eat a little more.

Somehow this applies to all aspects of the human person. Not just physical food. What is spiritual nutrition? There is meditative prayer which is a human actively engaged and which requires effort but as Teresa of Avila points out this requires great effort. I do believe we need to to really cultivate the "be still and know" type of prayer. Contemplative prayer requires active passivity and in many ways it is a receiving. Neuroscience has already noted that when we gain insight our brain chemistry changes and hormones are released. I think we could say that insights gained from sitting with God in contemplative prayer are the spices and flavourings which can encourage us to take care of our nutritional needs more fully.

Health and stress

Willingness implies a surrendering of one’s self-separateness, an entering into, an immersion in the deepest processes of life itself. It is a realization that one already is a part of some ultimate cosmic process and it is a commitment to participation in that process. In contrast, willfulness is the setting of oneself apart from the fundamental essence of life in an attempt to master, direct, control, or otherwise manipulate existence. More simply, willingness is saying yes to the mystery of being alive in each moment. Willfulness is saying no, or perhaps more commonly, ‘yes, but…’ Gerald May

The great stress researcher Hans Selye identified two type of stress good and bad. It was not on the external circumstances rather on our response. I've just finished Gerald May's The Dark Night of the Soul. It is a challenging book written both critically and personally. I could not help but remember that he was a cancer survivor and awaiting a heart transplant which never came. The importance of hope is something in the midst of stress can be trust with some reason or simply with no logical reason.

I'm in the midst of stress as Auntie Mary is back in hospital. I went to her place Sunday afternoon and there was no answer. I got a key to her place a few months ago for exactly this type of situation. Opening the door I had that fear of the unknown what was I going to find? The place was empty but odd! had she gone out? but without her cane or walker? Getting home I found a stack of phone message from all sorts of people and I rushed to Toronto East General to find her lying on a stretcher in the hallway. She's still in emergency 3 days later but at least in a room waiting for a bed upstairs. I'm glad she used her panic button to call for help but it was the third fall in 10 days. What was disturbing was her story of gypsies dancing nearby who woke her up and how beautiful the scene was. Fortunately the doctors think this is a by-product of an infection she is carrying. The stress is daily visiting and determining her future.

But Iris's father has just had a tumor removed from the bowel in a difficult operation. It seems to have gone well but more stress. The stress of not being together has made life difficult. The stress of my own wait for an appointment with an endocrinologist about a growth on one of my adrenal glands. This all adds up but the challenge is in how we respond to crisis and trouble and distress. I'm left with reflections again about the nature of hope as fierce faith in times of difficulty which is also fear's faith in these moment. Gerald May talks of a raw or naked hope in times of darkness when it is difficult to see anything clearly.

In the contemplative tradition the transition from meditation to contemplation is one from willfulness to willingness. This is an important movement as meditation is a personally active action where one applies the will to move oneself towards a state. Thus it is willful. But contemplation is personally passive action where one is willing and open without conditions and in fact freed of attachments to outcomes. Of course this is an ideal but only momentary at best. Yet when we pray in the Lord's Prayer Thy[your] will be done it is exactly this state we are desiring.

plastic problems

Ever since the growth was found on my adrenal glands and since trying to be more healthy and read The Story of Stuff I've been thinking about plastics.

Dealing with the past

I'm doing a lot of logotherapy - reading to work on issues in my life. Counseling and spiritual direction have really helped to bring into the open my life history and events in the past which have sucked life out of me. This book out of the library turned out quite important.

The Secrets of the Bulletproof Spirit: How to Bounce Back from Life's Hardest Hits by Azim Khamisa

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book is difficult to categorize. It's definitely not theology but has a lot to say in the area of spirituality and even relevance to the Christian believer. It's not psychology but it speaks to a person's inner life and their response to emotional troubles. It's not philosophy but has a lot to say about the way we think and process life.

It's all about how can we be different so we can recover from life's tough blows. It is about resilience both emotional and spiritual.When we are hit by disappointments, losses, betrayals, and tragedies how can we bounce back afterwards or prepare for the next time. Hits in life are inevitable and we will feel them. The two authors Azim Khamisa and Jillian Quinn want to persuade us that there is deep inside each person a spirit, a spiritual core, our true self. We are not our thoughts, feelings, or emotions, nor our possessions, roles, nor abilities.

There is a lot of good and helpful stuff in the 30 supposed secrets, though I'd call them commonsense. Two key ideas caught me as spiritual commonsense but I needed to be reminded of them. First is the importance of spiritual hygiene, what I know as spiritual disciplines, which contribute to spiritual and emotional resilience. of course I looked at that in terms of spiritual growth but not in terms of resiliency the ability to recover more quickly. Another which seemed logical not to deny my desires but to accept them (when wholesome) and yet to be detached from whether they are in fact met or not. Profound, simple, and very logical but important when life disappoints and dreams don't happen.



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Achieving techno-literacy or being a good beginner

Before you can master a device, program or invention, it will be superseded; you will always be a beginner. Get good at it. Kevin Kelly New York Times

This is probably the longest title for one of my blog entries. My boss told me today to clear the voice message box on my cell. Strangely I have no idea even how to access the box yet alone empty it. The trouble is most of the time we're surviving with tech toys because it is obsolete the moment we get it. But my argument here is he wants me to learn how to use something he wants to use but I don't want! Ignorance is bliss it is stress removing. Kevin Kelly author of an article in the New York Times has made me think more deeply about this.

We don’t need expertise with every invention; that is not only impossible, it’s not very useful. Rather, we need to be literate in the complexities of technology in general, as if it were a second nature.

It's not a matter of proficiency because we become slaves of the machine or we suffer loss because we operate how the technology wants us to use it. It is a matter of literacy so we can puzzle things out and how to do things the way we want to. The trouble is I'm late arrival on cell phones having been a user for less than 2 years. I'm happily ignorant. But ask me how to get something working or recover something that used to work and doesn't work now on one of my computers and generally I am pretty successful. Email is my preferred dimension of communication. Why because I am not oppressed by it. I can choose to deal with it or ignore it for a time. It does not control me. I like texting because it's the same but I'm slow because the multi buttons and intelligent or at least semi-intelligent input troubles me because it is counter intuitive.

Kevin Kelly writes further wisdom -

Every new technology will bite back. The more powerful its gifts, the more powerfully it can be abused. Look for its costs.

For me it is the cost is the tyranny of the urgent. The phone back home cost per call so no-one simply called for a time-wasting chat because every second cost money. But the phone and cell-phone put us in the urgent deal-with-me-now situation applying a lot of pressure.

Well how does this apply to the spiritual life? Internet addiction, crackberry habit, the desperate need to keep up with other so-called friends reveals something important. So how many Facebook friends do you have? Does that friend include God? How do I measure that friendship.

I believe, like media literacy, the development of techno literacy as critical thinking is important. We need to decide, make judgments as to what is really important. Sometimes I will use technology and devices in my devotional life, but more often than not I use paper books, pens and a nice paper journal to facilitate my time with God. Why? Because I remove the tyranny of the urgent by using slower tools and in that moment I gain freedom.

The older the technology, the more likely it will continue to be useful. Kevin Kelly

clearness, clarity, and correcting cluttered thinking

Space or spaciousness seems to be a key part of spirituality. The European gothic cathedrals changed the worldview of those worshipping inside. Earlier the architecture was constrained by the limitations of building techniques simply they could not build upwards and outwards without incredibly thick walls and lots of pillars. But the development of the buttress and flying buttress brought height, width, and light. Windows as vast surfaces of glass through which light filled this space opened things up. At the same time it is claimed that humans in their literature became more self -aware and self-reflective.

In the post-rock era of music, I am noticing a significant parallel. Recently I came across Natural Snow Buildings, a french duo who produce huge ambient landscapes using large audio palettes of sound. Their The Dance of the Moon and the Sun, an earlier work, reveals much of their origins but their recent release The Centauri Agent is more electronic and processed. The interesting thing is they are not commercial. Their recent issue is free for download through their label Vulpiano Records. Much of their previous work has been through incredibly small releases. It is clear they are not trying to make money. They are not flooding the world with cd's and bits of plastic.

In that collision of ideas I'm currently reading The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard, which is a detailed taking apart of our worldview of the need to acquire more and more stuff. She says "I'm not against stuff", "I'm not romanticizing poverty", "I'm not bashing the United States." But everything is connected in fact interconnected and the current global problems are linked to stuff. In this respect we need to understand our stuff i.e. how we got our stuff and where it came from, in terms of extraction, production, distribution consumption, and disposal. She paraphrases Einstein, saying "problems cannot be solved within the same paradigm in which they were created."

Last night in our Bible study we discussed what made you famous for more than 15 minutes. One person in my group said by changing the way people think. I think there's a little more than that, by changing the way people think by correcting cluttered thinking the world can be changed. We have at least to suspend thinking from within our current worldview.

Fierce Faith

We desire to be totally influenced by Jesus Christ and concerned with the personhood of others rather than with their talents or other gifts. John English Spiritual Freedom

Tonight is a difficult night in Korea and wish I were there, or she were here. The feelings of powerlessness are very real in me yet I am not in despair rather a desire for God's glory to be revealed. There are many tough lessons in life to be learned and fears to be confronted for me and I learned this week a saying from Richard Rohr that "Hope is fear's faith." I misheard it the first time and thought "Hope is fierce faith." But both are equally strong and insightful. In the face of the pain I feel she has, I have to, I must hope and find strength for her that "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Rm 8:28)

I've been reading John English for a month now and he wrote about the love relationship with God describing 3 modes of humility illustrated by the love relationship of marriage. The first is
illustrated by a commitment to the love relationship in being faithful. The second goes deeper being sensitive to situations of conflict which damage the relationship and seeking to make amends. Finally the third is that suffering with the spouse who is suffering. ..."the acid test of humility and sharing with one another will be found in suffering. ... In love's paradoxical view, a couple might even desire this situation if only to show their love by staying together in time of insults and disregard."

This is a tough time and perhaps I feel further away than I want to be, but I'm reminded of Bruce Cockburn's song Waiting for a Miracle. I'm really praying for the miracle.

You rub your palm
On the grimy pane
In the hope that you can see
You stand up proud
You pretend you're strong
In the hope that you can be
Like the ones who've cried
Like the ones who've died
Trying to set the angel in us free
While they're waiting for a miracle

Recycle and simplicity

I was reading an article on Lifehacker and one respondent claimed

A cd/dvd is considered a class 7 recyclable plastic. To manufacture a pound of plastic (30 CDs per pound), it requires 300 cubic feet of natural gas, 2 cups of crude oil and 24 gallons of water. It is estimated that AOL alone has distributed more than 2 billion CDs. That is the natural gas equivalent of heating 200,000 homes for 1 year. It is estimated that it will take over 1 million years for a CD to completely decompose in a landfill.

I'm so glad I no longer back my data up onto CD and DVD roms. But the issues remain about the nature of our garbage. The clutter I've been hanging onto is crazy, but perhaps the music industry's hanging onto CD's and the movie industries to DVD's is worse. I'm currently reading Henry David Thoreau's Walden. A very interesting book written in the first half of 19th century. It's a fascinating read not just because Thoreau is a Transcendentalist - a pre-industrialization proto- ecologist but because he challenges unbridled acquisition. In order to research and write, he built a little house by Walden Pond and farmed a few acres and claimed that "I found that ... it required only thirty or forty days in a year to support one." He grew his own food and built his own shelter and sold a little excess to cover his costs. He lived at Walden for 2 years 2 months and 2 days. The fascinating thing is I've been reading this on an iPod touch which has been gifted me by grace as a pass-me-on. It isn't, for me, a hand-me-down because it has raised me up. What if I had bought a book?

It occurs to me that it might possible to live your life more simply where technology is used especially where distribution is digital and virtual. Thoreau seems to be for me at the moment a 19th century hippie, jailed for refusing to pay his taxes in protest over the Mexican War. There is no doubt of his intellectual ability and insightfulness. (A graduate of Harvard.) I'm interested in where these thoughts go in the collision of ideas between Thoreau's and the distribution of digital media through the internet as possibly a lighter carbon footprint .

How does this relate to spirituality and faith? I believe we tend to simply accept cultural trends and marketing. We buy into an unbridled consumption model. if we do this it is extremely difficult not to end up with cluttered lives, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. We need enough space to think and to think critically. I'm about to read yet another book about decluttering. I am amazed not that I reading another one but that I can find yet another one. This one published 2008!

ways of asserting

Caring for my Auntie Mary is a strain at times. At 93 she remains strongly independent but sadly not to the extent of looking after herself properly. She is not eating enough and yet wants to live alone. It's tough as she wants to assert her independence but I need to help her do it in the right way.

I am glad that we can have 1 hour a day assisted living with a support worker, but now I get phone calls from the different agencies when she is not home. Saturday I had 4 calls from 2 different agencies because she did not answer her phone or door. Finally she answered the phone when she came home 7.30pm from her mineral club show. She did not tell the agency or the helper as she found them a nuisance . God give me strength and wisdom as I have to convince her that independence means having these people in her life!

Dogs and Cats

Strange stuff the last few days. I learned that my good friend is looking after Penny a small friendly long-term. He took her on a canoe trip and had a great time with her. Dogs need us our attention and care about us. Penny was off her leash and yet came back because she knew who fed her and cared for her. I think Penny is good for him. He has to get up in the morning walk and feed and play and be loved by this little dog.

This morning I was late for service and was even later because as I locked my bike I saw a group of people looking upwards. There on the building opposite a 4 storey industrial place and on top of a 12 foot large brick chimney was a small white cat. How it got there I have no idea. But to be sure cats are very different animals to dogs in human relationships. Yes we worry about the cat but I don't think we can say a cat loves its owner or the one who cares for it in the same way as a dog.

This fits something I was reading in a book this week which is about small acts of generosity and their far reaching effects even on the one being generous. Henri Nouwen in an interview with Philip Yancey records being correct by Nouwen that he did not give up stuff to care for Adam at L'Arche. Nouwen gained and benefited from the relationship because in learning to love he learned how much he himself was loved by God.

In learning to love a little dog, learning to care for this animal we can learn that we are loved and cared for. I feel even in my relationship with others, and especially with Iris, in loving and caring for others I have learned what love is and more so the greater love of God.

getting back to it

Well yesterday I felt drawn to the Reference Library on my way home. Don't know why but I went in. I thought to see if The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was available anyhow instead I picked up this book and read it between 11.45pm and 1.30am. Strangely challenging and relevant for where my life is at the moment.

Clutter Busting: Letting Go of What's Holding You Back by Brooks Palmer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What is this book doing on my ology shelf at Goodreads? Brooks Palmer, a professional clutter buster, is not an organizer. The issues are internal not external, more psychological, sociological, cultural etc. Most of it is not about organizing what you have accumulated rather getting rid of stuff both internally and externally.

People's homes are a map of their mind. The mind is a storehouse of memories and opinions and beliefs. ... Problems ensue. Things pile up unused. ... home had become a stagnant pool. ... When you toss things and readjust your living space, you readjust your state of mind

We need to clear our minds and our homes to find space and freedom. We need to find release from the stuff, which invariably has feelings attached to them and realize that this clutter locks us into the past. Believing that these feelings are in fact scarce we need to realize that through letting go we can have freedom to experience the abundance and riches of feelings in the present.

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Not a Mamil

I was wondering whether to buy a lycra cycling top as I have been loosing a bit of weight and cycling more. Today I managed my first steep hill in a year since my back injury. I didn't get off I didn't feel pain or strain anything. But I remembered the article I came across on the BBC news site, Rise of the Mamils (middle-aged men in lycra). Oops I thought and perhaps a cycling top is not the best idea. I'm not ready to join the Mamils yet! Maybe a few more pounds to go and I'll be the weight when I left school at eighteen.

As I get fitter and lighter I am feeling a lot more at ease. I took 6 boxes of theology books to the local bookstore just to clear and of course the public library system took 6 boxes of scifi. Today I cleared another 2 boxes of books and tomorrow I give away my bed.

A stressed week

The last few days have been stressful. My Auntie Mary wasn't home when she should have been but we weren't sure that she was out. When all the agencies (four of them) who are involved in her daily care call, I end up being the co-ordinator. I was trying to decide whether we needed the police or not. Thank God for helpful phone operators who referred me to a supervisor who was inspired to call the person giving her a ride to a doctor's appointment. Why a doctor's office doesn't have a human being to answer phones I have no idea. Anyway the panic was aleviated after 2 hours.

The same day my doctor emails me and tells me I have an adrenal incidentaloma. Actually I didn't see those words. All I saw in the email was a growth on my adrenal gland and a discussion whether in was benign or malignant. Well currently it is 6mm and therefore tiny and it needs to be monitored to see if it grows or not. There isn't a panic at the moment rather this is quite common and it will be a matter of wait and see. But I'm going to see the doctor next week.

This week I had my dental hgienist appointment. Mostly everything was OK except the problem molar was 9mm pocket. Actually 4 or 5 is normally bad! She took X-rays and was going to talk to the dentist. Well the same day as the other stuff she phones and advised me that the dentist was suggesting extraction! It's the last molar on the bottom right side, so I was worried. Nothing would left to chew on. Well we're going to wait and see if I can improve my hygiene and that it begins to heal! A real call for prayer because the expectation is that it will not.

Also this week is Iris' english exam results. She needed an average score of 6 and I got the call to say she got a 7. Our relief is unbelievable because all the other stuff of the week is pushed aside and we now know we can have a future together. With only 2 weeks of preparation I feel God's hand is with us.

Burning

Often we are preoccupied with the question "How can we be witnesses in the Name of Jesus? What are we supposed to say or do to make people accept the love that God offers them?" These questions are expressions more of our fear than of our love. Jesus shows us the way of being witnesses. He was so full of God's love, so connected with God's will, so burning with zeal for God's Kingdom, that he couldn't do other than witness. Henri Nouwen Bread for the Journey

Paul Richardson's book and his life is invigorating, inspiring and scary. The challenge of faith at the edge demands creativity, dreaming, and risk taking. All very logical and all demanding a step or maybe a jump into space. But we can have confidence. "Assimilate it [God's Word] into your life so that you can plunge into your days with unbounded freedom." May God give us this confidence and enable us to burn without being consumed. After all faith is nothing until it is exercised and sretched.

A personal challenge

A Certain Risk: Living Your Faith at the Edge by Paul Andrew Richardson

Of course getting our priorities right in life is important but Richardson moves everything to a new level. In fact you might say my understanding and more important my way of living is challenged in the edgiest way possible.

As the Spirit opens your eyes, what will he allow you to see? He will show you greater possibilities that you have ever dreamed before.(158) To be sure, many leaders have an important role as visionaries and communicators. Yet, as we come closer, we will always discover a band of people who have stepped out by faith in response to the dreams the Spirit has planted in their hearts.(38) The agony of faith ...is stepping out beyond the edge of human capabilities and trusting God's Spirit to lift us into his dreams.(113) Faith is the flash point between God's creativity and your participation in his creativity (100)

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Infobesity

We are so informed that we can’t be bothered. Catherine Collins British Dietetic Association

Brian just sent me a link to Tim Challies blog (here) and I found this great quote within a quote from John Naish's book Enough. We need and I think I need to learn his lesson of when enough is enough. Challies notes that Golden Labrador Retrievers are a dog that has a far bigger eyes than stomach and not a lot of sense. It will eat too much, throw up and then eat again. The dog will repeat this cycle.

... while we are given more information than ever about healthy eating, our consumption of fresh food has fallen. This is partly because we are too busy getting and spending to enjoy the simple pleasures of cooking.

One of the lessons coming at me from counseling and spiritual direction is that I know a lot but am lousy at actually practicing it or applying it in the real world. I know what I need to do but don't do it or use it or applying to wisdom. I consume information in large quantities but the issue is application. I hurt Iris yesterday because I had too much information to give rather than love and support. There is so much information out there but in fact it's more about learning lessons not consuming. It's more about digesting and not merely filling our stomachs. Otherwise we're (or at least I am) no better than a Golden Labrador Retriever.

Marketing wisdom or commonsense

I've just finished reading Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping. It looks at human behaviour and the retail environment and attempts analysis of how human chopping behaviour works and why. To this how the store environment can work with or work against this behaviour. They call this the conversion rate, from someone wandering into a store to someone leaving the store with a purchase.

My friend Firman and I were talking this week about this in terms of getting clients. You don't just wait for them to come to you. You have to get out there and talk and meeting and get infront of them. If you're looking for someone who might want to become a Christian, you want them to comein and stick around. We want a conversion rate as well yet we are passive.

In retail it seems to be well known that men will wander into a store, look for information in brochures or displays, collect and generally leave without consulting or talking to anyone. Women are the opposite looking for advice and to consult someone who knows something about what they're looking for.

I realized this has huge ramifications for churches how they welcome men and women. When it comes to welcome desks, information points, and welcome personnel there are enormous changes needed in how things are done, if done at all. Churches are generally dominated numerically by women. Why? My boss once asked whether it's because the words of the songs (read excessive emotionalism) or the relevance of the messages or the packaging/environment is wrong? We asked this on one of our staff training modules why university Christian groups tend to be monocultures, particularly no "jocks"? So what is the purpose of the church? to become monocultures because that is what is most successful or to become reflections of the Kingdom of God?

information overload or obesity

...the average American on an average day, who consumes 34 gigabytes and 100,000 words of information Roger Bohn How Much Information? 2009 Report on American Consumers

I started reading a blogger running a site called infovegan. I was challenged because he was thinking about the consumption of information like food and calories. Rather than having the weight oppressing us, we are consumers of information and can become obese. The solution is a balanced diet. Many of his ideas originate from some research at the University of California by Roger Bohn (here). I think infovegan deductions are based on the fact that around 41 percent of information time is watching TV (including DVDs, recorded TV and real-time watching). But he fails to acknowledge that a higher percentage of the total time is spent on computer games.

Still there some interesting helpful suggestions which I been thinking in response to my internet time and bytes consumed which is vastly larger than the average American of the research. Infovegan suggests realizing we are choosing to eat and then looking at what we're consuming.

"...if you find yourself agreeing or disagreeing with the information you’re consuming, ... You’re consuming too much opinion and not enough fact. ... consumption ought to be limited such that you maintain a clear mind and the ability to form your own opinions."

So what do I need to do? Well I'm trying to read more books and some fiction. I'm trying to understand how I look at the world and respond to it. I'm trying to simplify in the pursuit of simplicity so I can be freer and more spontaneous because there is enough space to be so. I need to lose some weight in the information diet and eat more healthily.

In my prayers Wednesday morning I read this. It hit me deeply because Iris and I were talking about this exact area of our lives only 10 hours earlier.

It is so easy to get caught up
with the trappings of wealth in this life.
Grant, O Lord, that I may be free
from greed and selfishness.
Remind me that the best things in life are free.
Love, laughter, caring and sharing.

small and compact and meaningful

Terunobu Fujimori, Tokyo, Japan - Beetle’s House from Victoria and Albert Museum on Vimeo.

This Beetle House is small but it has that sense of simplicity and spaciousness that I feel is when my soul is headed.

feeling lighter and spacious

The last few days I've found new energy and my internal space you might say my psyche feels lighter and more spacious. It's the product I believe in God's intervention in my life, physical health in the medical and dental treatments, mental and emotional in the counseling, in the spiritual with my director, and the external spatial in beginning to clear up and get rid of stuff.

Today I had to help Auntie Mary, in her frailty. Finally I and her Veteran Affairs Canada counselor met with her together and got her to agree to accept help. But it's not that the help isn't there for her. I've talked at length with her, the VAC counselor, the community care counselor, and even there's the Neighbourhood Link social worker in the background. Today I started opening her mail and sorting her financial documents out. In that moment I realized I had the energy to face my own problems of organization. I am being changed through the experience of helping, serving, and realizing I don't want to be this cluttered and unable to cope. I found uncashed expired cheques and unpaid bills etc. After three and a half hours I cleared one chair and one third of the table. There's a long way to go but we've begun the journey.

labels - help or hinder

I've nearly completed the sift, sort and dispose sequence in the my CD collection there are over 120 CD in the dispose. Just people I'm never really going to listen to yet in my keep boxes are close to 300 CDs, excluding the 100 or so still on shelves. I started trying to make up playlists so that I can categorize them for playing and reasons for playing. Trying work out what category to file some of my stuff is really difficult. I got scared when I found some of my stuff was described as shoegaze! Is that a musical style? I'm happier with the label of postrock but what does it really mean.

I have bands such as Sigur Rós, Labradford, Japancakes, Channel Light Vessel etc. They are a rock version (or postrock version) of Philip Glass a classical minimalist composer. The music is extremely repetitive with slight variation and modulations. It is these changes which create the interest as the patterns change and morph. Add to the fact the speeds are slower and there is a lot of reverb to create a huge ambiance, we are talking about a genre nesting between chill, minimalism and meditation.

The Bible talks about vain repetition in praying and perhaps this also applies to worship but the issue is this. Whether the nuanced changes and variations create something which rather than being vain is a gentle route lifting us to the ecstatic moment where everything disappears and God is God. The liturgical chants of the Orthodox churches and liturgical monasticism especially made popular in Taizé provides this. I remember a teenager saying once of her first Taizé worship experience, who needs drugs, when there is this experience.

But there is a dark side. Friday I was reading about the Danger Mouse/SparkleHorse project Dark Night of The Soul. I've been aware of Danger Mouse in looking at concepts of copyright in the remix culture and the "Grey Album" a remix of the Beatles White Album and the Jay-Z's Black Album. He is part of the better known Gnarls Barkley.

Well Dark Night was first delayed by legal wrangles but deeply marred by the suicides of co-creator Mark Linkous/Sparklehorse and contributor Vic Chesnutt. This recent album carries some heavy baggage which I hope to listen to soon. I wonder about whether a heavenward moment and a hellish moment are possible. Of course I think yes. In my sorting I had to decide whether to keep The Tear Garden's To Be An Angel Blind, The Crippled Soul Divide. I kept it because it is an authentic reflection of one side of human emotions, the darker side.

A Gift

I got a parcel from Korea. In it was a book of Sting's poems. NB I said poems and not songs.

Of course they're the lyrics from decades of writing, but reading through the book I was separated from the music to appreciate the beauty of mere words. Sting describes it as being like separating a mannequin from the clothes it is wearing. The dummy is naked and there is a pile of cloth on the floor. The words stripped of their dependence on music are exposed to human examination.

When you're down and they're counting
When your secrets all found out
When your troubles take to mounting
When the map you have leads you to doubt
When there's no information
And the compass turns to nowhere that you know well

Let your soul be your pilot
Let your soul guide you
He'll guide you well

I'm rereading what might a controversial book Dance of the Selves by a transpersonal psychologist within a Jungian understanding of the human personality as both male/logic/animus and female/intuition/anima. Loretta Ferrier basically posits we need both the male and female aspects of us to work together for us to be truly effective and maybe I might use the word healthy. She see that the feminine intuition is the visionary and guide, but unless the masculine logic is there then dreams remain dreams. If there is only the the male aspect then things might be orderly tidy but stale and locked into often unhealthy patterns of living. An interesting book with perhaps some kernels of truth to open ourselves to ourselves, but with some caution and care.

Where does this leave me? Thoughts about what happens in the crises of life. Medieval Christian spirituality adopted a view point from Aristotle, namely knowledge of self was knowledge of God. Here Ferrier offers a guide to better mental/emotional health through knowledge of self and I think is helpful but only when kept in the light of God i.e. illuminated by God. In Christian terms we do not merely need to change and grow in faith but also we need to know something of the old self because the old self will return and cause trouble. Regeneration or sanctification are processes.

Paradox or absurdity

It seems much more healthy to me to accept that two pieces of contradicting information can both some how be true. It removes that default state of distrust, and displaces it with acknowledgement, respect and insight. Frank Chimero On Paradoxes

I've been thinking about a conversation I had on Sunday about how sometimes the world seems random and the choices we make significant and yet we confess God is sovereign and rules over everything. The necessity of paradox to generate mystery other wise things become explainable and the divine reduced to level of human understanding. Religion and of course theology are at the end of the day human constructs and therefore flawed and limited with a certain provisionality. Thus my ideas are always locked in time and subject to change either breakdown like entropy in science or changing and evolving and maturing. Hence the theme of this blog.

I've been reading the Minimal mac which sent me the way of Frank Chimero's blog and an entry called On Paradoxes. He made me think about the relationship between paradox and absurdity.

Often times paradox and absurdity are mistaken for one another. I think there’s a subtle, but important difference. Absurdity is paradox’s immature little brother. Absurdity is spineless. ...Two incongruent things are placed side-by-side. The supposed value is amusement from the randomness. Absurdity often seems a pale imitation of paradox. The Simpsons is paradox. Family Guy is absurdity. ... Paradox has insight, absurdity lacks it. Paradoxes have meaning.

One of the problems of the Enlightenment i.e. Modernist thought, which gave way to facts being scientific and rational, is to reduce the mysterious to the explainable. Sadly religion and theology sometimes ends up here or at least reduces everything to the level of absurdity. Surely paradox opens our minds to mystery and subsequently to wonder. For is not the beginning of wisdom fear of the Lord?

The Minor Third

I think most people recognize that songs and music in the minor key are sadder than the major key. The first though I've had is how often are contemporary worship songs in a minor key. If we go back to the Victorian hymnbooks I can recall easily the presence of these especially in the Easter passion season leading up to Easter Sunday. Just a quick reflection as I've been sorting CDs to keep, Fauré Requiem the transitions between major and minors is startling and emotive. The transition in the last two movements Libera Me, in a minor key in a lower octave, to In Paradisum, in a major key in a high voice, is positively sublime.

The minor third is the clue to understanding sadness. Meagan Curtis of Tufts University has found the minor third progression is not merely a musical thing but occurs in human speech patterns portraying sadness. (At least in American English). So here I return to my old question so why isn't anyone writing worship songs with minor thirds or minor keys and if I've missed them why aren't we using them? Life has its joys and sadness, light and darkness.

More dimensions part 2

Reading appears passive because it takes place in a chair, on a bed, at the beach, in the tub, etc. Reading is action, exercise demanding strength of mind. Amy King Start A Revolution: Read this Book

I came across a longer quotation from Amy King which helped me understand more about the difference between books and film. Reading requires effort "working the imagination in to a sweat and, by default, developing other difficult-to-discuss human attributes like empathy and conscience." I don't think she is denying film or movies can have something to say and stretch our minds but her polemic is to challenge us not to be passive undiscriminating members of the crowd. I suppose her book has to go on my list of to read one day!

When it comes to reading the Bible it is not about learning stories, or being amused, or studying it to collect mere wisdom. Ideally it is about it becoming part of our worldview, developing our imagination and expectations, and changing our character to growing in empathy and conscience. The key is, I think, reading for formation and re-formation, rather than merely reading for information to be extracted.

Gifts and choices

Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy -- they're given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you're not careful, and if you do, it'll probably be to the detriment of your choices. Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon.com

Jeff Bezos speaking at this year's Princeton graduation told the story of a car journey with his grandparents and what happened when he said something smart but not sensitive about his grandmother's smoking. Pulled aside by his grandfather he was give a simple wisdom. "Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever."

Bezos gave up a good job in a financial firm to found Amazon and he admitted ... "it really was a difficult choice, but ultimately, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn't think I'd regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all."

I'm challenged by what Bezos says and by the strange connections he makes. He doesn't major on the kindness as a choice but the deeper key of choices. Being kind for him is not a gift but a choice, perhaps because being kind involves choices about the things you have and have been given. For a good part of my life I have been taking the path of least resistance or at least desiring that. Now I find perhaps rather than going with the flow I need to step out even more in faith, having the courage of my convictions. Bezos claims "We are the choices we make." I'm beginning to think he is right. My choice to leave the civil service quit a secure job, my choice to leave the UK, my choice leave friends and family behind has made me who I am here and now.

I'm living through a time in my life where I'm forced not to go with the flow but to make clear and deliberate decisions about my attitudes and values, about my health and lifestyle, about the very core of who I am, my identity. These choices will shape who I am in the future, for better or worse. I am not what I have, nor what I do but the choices I make. Perhaps to love perhaps the care or to be kind.

more dimensions

There is something about the written word which seems to have more dimensions or perhaps more angles than film. I suspect it is something about the narrative structure of film which restricts things. I've just finished reading Nick Hornby's About a Boy. I watched the film of the same name starring Hugh Grant months ago and Iris left the book behind. I started yesterday afternoon and finished it off this evening. Actually I read 90 percent this evening.

The storyline is basically the same but there are different scenes appearing and disappearing when comparing book and film. But somehow Nick Hornby in his writing, and the book facilitates this better, allows us to get inside the heads of his characters and find something authentically real. One moment of ironic tension found in the book where Marcus' mother in her confusion to have Will stop his involvement then says "You can't just shut life out, you know." Will's counter argument in his narration to us is " She was wrong, he was almost positive. You could shut life out. If you didn't answer the door to it, how was it going to get in?"

The trouble is life does creep in. In the back door, through a crack in the window, via the letter box in the door, life and it's power to confront gets inside. Unless of course you are truly hermetically sealed, divorced from others, merely living a second-hand existence.

Cross platform universal application

My old iMac is holding up pretty well at the moment though I'm stuck at OSX Tiger. In my urge to simplify I have adopted Notational Velocity (NV) as a very simple note-taking and organizing program. It works well and keeps things far less cluttered but everything was locked to my desktop. Now I discover NV synchronizes with Simplenote, a web-storage and iPod touch/iPhone app.( something I hope for later). For now I have my netbook for traveling and taking notes etc on the move. The beauty is that there is a Windows program Resophnotes which also syncs with Simplenote. Guess what I seem to have seamless syncing between my different computer platforms with the option of of adding the iPod Touch later and yes it works.

Recently I had to think hard and refine my thoughts on truth. Pilate asked Jesus "What is truth?" This remains a very relevant question in an era where everyone seems or claims that whatever is true for me is OK and at the sametime will lay claim to universal human rights. In a time in history where much of philosophy argues against universals and universal truth, so many people are also arguing for their rights in a manner that assumes a universal understanding! Here it seems to me is the dilemma. The tension whether somehow we can validate something as true. Pilate made an assertion and Jesus asked whether it was his idea? Pilate tries to defend himself and we can see the following discussion between Jesus and Pilate as a discussion about truth or authenticity.

Andrew Potter has written a book called The Authenticity Hoax of which I've read a small part so far. In it he makes a valuable distinction: Authenticity as provenence, something with history, a track record; Authenticity as artistic expression; and Authenticity as something we want. I think the last is very interesting because it suggest a certain hunger, need. or desire for authenticity or truth. Of course I have equated these two words as similar or as being related. I'm still not sure but at this moment it seem that truth and perhaps authenticity are validated within human experience even though they might be universals. Provenance is important both logical and intuitive assessment are possible but somehow more important and more interesting is the human need for authentic things with our existence, I wonder if this is a life with meaning, something we can trust in or have faith in.

culture clash

I've been clearing and sorting my CDs and there are 45 CD's in my current get rid of pile (and it's still growing). There's everything Jazz, rock, pop, dance, R&B, folk etc. I've also working on new playlists on iTunes for the 1960's, 70's, 80's and 90's. Tracks that I remember and remind me of things. The biggest at the moment is the 1980's currently 83 tracks and the 70's are 54. The other periods are still small as I sort out my memories and find out what is missing for me.

But as I review all this stuff that I acquired, picked up etc I came across a little gem a fusion CD Sacred Spirit II Culture Clash. Mixing cello blues and electronica, it's a fascinating blend. I've probably had the CD for 5-7 years and never listened to it. (If you want hear a sample I've posted a link to a youtube video on my other blog here.) John Lee Hooker, the blues musician is part of the mix but sadly the cellist is not named.

There are many memories that we have not listened to, like this Sacred Spirit CD. My current situation means that because my life is on pause and I am examining memories and my reactions and this means learning and perhaps even choosing now an alternative response to situations in the past. This all means I hope and pray a healthier future.

I will continue the CD sorting and compiling my playlists and I suspect also doing that with my life's memories.

Health and health

What a day! I've been to my counsellor, to my doctor, to my chiropractor and to my regular pharmacist. The only people I didn't see today were my dentist and spiritual director!

I really do feel that I am moving to really good health. My counsellor is pleased with progress with the insights I have gained and expressed and I'm encouraged how much more at peace I feel nowadays, even though the future is still very unclear. My doctor is very pleased my bad cholesterol has dropped from 6.7 to 2.1 with the medication and changes in lifestyle and diet. My risk of a heart attack has dropped from 30 percent to 6 percent. Of course that doesn't include the other factors I've been working on in my lifestyle. According to what I've heard, walking for 30 minutes a day can slash the risk of a heart attack by 30 to 40 percent! I'm also eating a small quantity of almonds almost every day because a study suggested a handful five times a week cut the risk of heart attack in half! I am self consciously eating a variety of fish with omega 5 and 3 as well.

In fact you should have seen the graphs of my HDL, LDL and triglyceride levels all were at a 45 degree slope, downwards! I picked up my prescriptions, Crestor and baby aspirin, from the pharmacist feeling very encouraged. The aspirin is reputed to reduced the risk of a heart attack by 32 percent though increase stroke risks! My blood pressure is still a bit on the high side and also iron also. My ultrasound results have recommended I should have a CAT scan of my adrenal glands, so the exam continues.

My chiropractic appointment was more maintenance. I had a little back pain over the weekend but with exercises and the recovery was pretty quick. I'm also trying to brush my teeth twice a day and floss regularly because it is suggested that periodontal disease is linked to coronary artery disease or atherosclerosis, a narrowing of the arteries caused by deposits of fat and plaque onto the arteryl walls.

Health comes on many levels, physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. They all overlap and infact there is also the social which we discussed today as well. Of course there is the question Will I obtain ultimate health? To which the answer is no but at least then I will have done what is living responsibly, living as a good steward of all that I am and therefore living in the spirit of Shalom - peace.

Note a video posting

I've posted a video on my other blog. It's beautiful piece from Julian LLoyd Webber. (here)

Message in a Bottle

Walked out this morning, don't believe what I saw, Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore, Seems I'm not alone in being alone, Hundred billion castaways, looking for a home. Sting

Karen Liebreich wrote a book called The Letter in the Bottle which was about her unsuccessful search for the mother who wrote a heart-rending letter found washed up in a bottle off the Kent coast. Karen tried every route possible to track down the author and got all the science and pseudoscience she could. I came across the story in The Daily Telegraph because after the book was published, the woman who had written the sad letter to her deceased son came forward. It had taken her 21 years to face down the grief of loss and throwing his clothes into the ocean, together with 2 lilies and the bottle with the letter.

Liebreich gives us details of this woman's story:

The bottle was my idea. I already knew that I needed to do something to let him go and I had thought of a letter in a bottle – why not. The whole thing was triggered by a dream, the dream that I mentioned in the letter. I had a beautiful dream about Maurice and I finally understood that it was time to let him go.

The past haunts and handicaps us. Then it is time to let go and move forwards when we understand.

I'm not Catholic, though my family was. And of course I was very angry with Him. There is some kind of superior energy, a cosmic force, and I was furious with Him. Today I am once again happy to be alive...

We all have unfinished business because we are works in progress. Somehow I feel this particular work in progress has begun a signficant time of letting go. A letting go of pain and therefore a chance to gain. I have a feeling of release these days and somehow after what seems a long time can can say I'm happy to be alive.
(If you're interested in the article it's here)

Pay it Forward

You don't pay love back; you pay it forward. Lily Hardy Hammond In the Garden of Delight

Why do we do things for other people? Perhaps we do it for a return or for the feel good factor. Few of us are like philanthropists giving fortunes away like Charles Saatchi of the Advertising company who has just given away a complete art collection and museum to go with it and doesn't want it named after him. So why do we do things for other people. I've just found that Jane Siberry, a Canadian singer who I've known about for a while, has made her complete music catalogue available on the internet [here]. I'm surprised in this world of copyright and intellectual property and possessing stuff to find this generosity. (Note there's a lot of traffic and you'll have to try quite a few times to grab a file before succeeeding.)

On the webpage she says free, enjoy and pay it forward. What is pay it forward? Wikipedia says ""pay it forward" is used to describe the concept of asking that a good turn be repaid by having it done to others instead." In other words pay back is never to the giver but to someone else. Strangely I think I've been living a bit that way. I do stuff for people with the hope they'll learn to help others. There's been a number of interesting spinoffs recorded in Wikipedia including a project from the Oprah Winfry Show, but what they fail to address the the fundamental motivation and the value behind the giving. I believe pay it forward contains a wish to change the world's values.

This is not that different to altruism where someone sacrifices their own life to protect the lives of others. Though Richard Dawkin's would probably want to put a different twist to this especially to die or sacrifice for your kin or family but at the core of the Christian faith is one of sacrifice for strangers and the estranged i.e. those far away. Postmodern philosopher Derrida struggled with the idea of the gift as unconditional, perhaps even grace as unconditional is a problem because it always carrys with it a call to pay it forward. This is so true if we take seriously the parable of forgiven debts.

I said you did not have to pay back a cent. Don't you think you should show pity to someone else, as I did to you? Matt 18:32-33

More of the right stuff

Focus on acquiring abilities, not tools. Instead of buying a bunch of gadgets to help me get a job done, let’s spend more time learning the skills behind the job. Tools are just things, but skills become part of us. ... Let’s stop hoarding stuff (money, books, guarantees, etc.) in the name of “What if?” and have the courage to rely on our ability to deal with crises. artofgreatthings.com

I might not fully agree with the self-reliance theme of the blogger, but there is a grain of truth. I'm a hoarder because of anxiety and the supposed need to build a resource base. The clutter mentally, physically even emotionally and spiritually becomes a weight draining energy because I don't and never would have enough space to store it all. The time comes for choices: BIG choices. Stuff is becoming an burden. If Iris is to return, even before then I need to find the physical space by ridding myself of the millstone of stuff.

Somehow the job is to simplify reduce the stuff without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. What is core and needed? What is only clutter? The trouble is the new stack of CD's got from garage sales the last few weeks over 40. Trying to decide what to keep and what to get rid of. Last week I got 30 CDs for 5 dollars so I need to really clear what I'm not going to keep. Out of the piles I really wanted Celine Dion's Colour of My Love, Alicia Key's Diary of Alicia Keys, Titanic Soundtrack, Norah Jones' Feels Like Home, Santana's Supernatural to name a few key ones. But maybe I should be playing my cello more?

What makes music Spiritual or Christian?

For avowedly Christian music it [the music of Pärt] is not, perhaps, very plainly founded upon the Incarnation of the Son of God. Dale Nelson

I've been thinking again about an episode a few years ago when some Arvo Pärt music was used because he was a Christian. Pärt's music has a sense of silence, of stillness and therefore of course can provide a setting but dangerously this can be merely utilitarian muzak like elevator or supermarket background music. I read an interesting article which contrasted Bach and Part. Bach wrote, “In a reverent performance of music God is always present with His grace” however his understanding is very much a verbal one. Yet perhaps the key observation from Dale Nelson is Bach wrote music for the church, while Pärt mostly writes for the concert hall. Very different contexts and very different reasons for writing.

Much of modern contemporary worship is performative rather unitive. Performed from the front and self-reflective there a danger of the personal worship album as a collection of personal songs is being used supposedly to unite people. What was the reason for writing the song and what was the setting intended?

I read that CS Lewis once heard a Zulu war song and thought it was “wistful and gentle” and consequently wondered whether music was really a universal language. However when we use music we should use it self-consciously making clear theological decisions. Why are we using this? Are we using it with some sense of integrity and understanding or merely as wallpaper?

It's not a bargain if you don't need it!

People use equipment as a crutch. They don't want to put in the hours ... They're looking for a shortcut. But you just don't need the the best gear to be good ... content is what matters. You can spend tons on fancy equipment, but if you've got nothing to say... well, you've got nothing to say. Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson Rework

Of course this is true but how many of us live this way nowadays. We look for the shortcut, the path of least resistance. I confess I have but that is not always the healthiest way to go. The product whether it's something I say , do , play, present, or simply make will be shallow lacking purpose and challenge. I don't want to live that way. Living out faith for me is to express and create something anew. My counsellor noted the importance of the personal insight, literally the "Aha" moment. He's right for I live for the moment when it all comes together, the pieces become one thing: when the collection of ideas or bits I've collected cohere together. Do we actually have anything meaningful to say unless we put the work in? That means spending enough time, being sufficiently open to what God would have to say to each one of us.

minimize and simplify

Along these lines, simplicity isn’t a goal or an end result. Simplicity is a means to an end, with the ultimate destination being a remarkable life focused on what matters most to you. You don’t practice simplicity for simplicity’s sake, you practice simplicity to clear the distractions that get in the way of the life you desire. The Unclutterer blog

I have so much stuff and dealing with it is something I need to do. I'm also trying to simplfy my old iMac. Using simpler faster launching programs. Word or NeoOffice (the Mac Openoffice program) both take an age to launch and give me far more than I often want. I found the blog MinimalMac and am beginning to assess what I really need. There were some really simple and effective programs out there. In considering what is needed I generally want things faster and slimmer and even simpler so I'm going to try Notational Velocity a speedy little note-taker which launches in less than 2 seconds. Also Bean a lightweight wordprocessor which again launches very fast.

We've grown up with the crazy idea that big with lots of features is good, but maybe small is really beautiful and maybe I'll get more things done? Simplification means hopefully less time taken up by tech and more time for the important things namely things which give life meaning and purpose.

Peace and Shalom

To see a world in a grain of sand. And a heaven in a wild flower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand. And eternity in an hour William Blake Auguries of Innocence

Cycling downtown and down St George, past three groups of 20 or so police on bikes and the sounds of helicopters flying overhead. As I neared church I saw two people sat on the curb side their hands tied behind their backs, surrounded by police I had no sense of the presence of God. More so I felt this was a war zone a place of the absence of God - a place of violence. What had happened to the familiar and the peace of the city?

I had my dental surgery on Thursday and recovered quite quickly I was fully conscious and alert after 2 hours unlike last time which was more the following day. There has been a greater sense of peace and hope in me. Even as I deal with gum infections - note that I'm taking a cocktail of both Penicillin and Azithromycin but I've stopped needing my pain killers - I hope things are getting better. Certainly my body seems to be more at peace. Also I've also started taking Crestor, a Statin for cholesterol reduction, and baby Aspirin for heart disease prevention. Also to lower my sodium and my high blood pressure I'm changing my diet. Perhaps Shalom-peace when everything works as it should. At the moment my body needs a lot of help but hoping that I will stablize at a better health level.

On iTunes I discovered the PBS podcast series "Take One Step for A Healthy Heart" a very interesting series and as I completed Andrew Weil's Healthy Aging I am planning to make signficant changes in diet and eating habits. Even drinking more green tea on top of my normal tea drinking, brushing my teeth more often, flossing more and rinsing with antimicrobial mouth wash. In the moment my mind and spirit I feel are less anxious and I'm waking without my jaw being tense.

I can say that vision and reasons have changed within me. God seems to have spoken, called through the one I love and now I find myself seeking for health and lingering less on pain... rather looking for eternity in the hour, to the glimpse of glory and finding it. She once wrote "your heart is within me" and although she is far away I'm drinking out of that cup called hope. (literally the mug she left behind) and finding her heart within me in the peace that only God can give.

Earthquake

Toronto had a 5.5 earthquake this afternoon. I felt the house shaking and went into the kitchen to make sure the shelves there didn't fall over. We survived but the whole house shook for quite a few seconds. It's about 16-17 years since the last I can remember but this one was much bigger and longer.

Life has been a number of upheavals. My life is changing with the proposal, worries about the future, then another feeling of God's provision. Today I saw her off at the airport not sure of the future but with more hope than before. Tomorrow I'm off to the dentist again to sort out tooth pain with a root canal.

I've been thinking about the relationship of Faith to Hope or perhaps Hope to Faith. Augustine asserts "The fact that we do not see either what we believe or what we hope for, is all that is common to faith and hope. ... [but] there is no love without hope, no hope without love, and neither love nor hope without faith." I cannot hope without faith that God is at work with us. But as I see it hope is rooted in an authentic relationship, one that is loving. While this is not an earth shatteringly intellectual idea, it is quite a personal realization when I think about the distance between us, i.e. Korean - Canada. But also faith that God, who we believe brought us together, will do it again soon.

A song from the Korean drama Stairway to Heaven called Bogoshipda 보고싶다 translated means I miss you. Iris I miss you. I'm hoping and believing in your return.

Something similar

Iris and I were encouraged by this recently, Celine Dion's story.

Choose love

How can we choose love when we have experienced so little of it? We choose love by taking small steps of love every time there is an opportunity. A smile, a handshake, a word of encouragement, [etc] ... Each step is like a candle burning in the night. It does not take the darkness away, but it guides us through the darkness. When we look back .... we will discover that we have made a long and beautiful journey. Henri Nouwen Bread for the Journey

I still am experiencing jaw pain both on the right side and left side but perhaps the causes are different. I'm pretty sure the right is due to tmj and grinding my teeth. But the left seems to be in the zone where the tooth extraction took place and maybe I have an infection as the gum is sore to the touch. When I feel the touch of sympathy or feel the loving frustration of being unable to do anything, I can either stay mired in the pain or choose love. When she is in pain with her back I can remain self-focused or choose to be other-focused in love.

God is love. Not God has love but God is love. This could be a philosophical statement that God in essence is love or God as transcendental defines all loves. But I'd like to think every human relationship has the potential to include God and be loving. To choose Love is to choose to include God. Iris and I pray that God will remain the centre of our relationship.