An Experience of Beauty

I’ve been feeling pretty crappy since I got back from my retreat on Thursday. I honestly didn’t expect the attack to be so bad upon ‘re-entry’. I have been struggling to feel authentic, feeling strange emotionally and physically. I have, however, been sleeping wonderfully which has been very nice. I’ve been struggling a lot to see or feel God at work and I’m pretty stressed about the amount of work that needs to get done for summer programs at the church. This morning, however, I had one of those awesome experiences of identifying God’s beauty in something. We were in church and there were a lot more kids there than normal… many of these kids didn’t come with their parents (and even a lot of the ones that did were sitting with random members of our summer staff). We were singing and at one point a mom passed her toddler off to someone a couple of rows ahead of her to watch. It was so simple but in that moment I loved my church. I saw God in how we care for each other and try to practice accepting community. I rejoiced in how God is changing me and the people around me to better represent Him. It was pretty cool.

Then I spent the afternoon at the Camp Oneida Open House. We are sending four kids there this summer so we took their families and them out to see the camp. We had a great time. The families had a great time… it’s so fun to watch them play together. The kids are excited for camp and I’m so glad I get to be part of dropping them off and picking them up. I love our neighbourhood families and am SO blessed by being a part of their lives.

So I’m feeling a bit better… still a little strange physically… oh, but now I can’t sleep!

I’m Baaaaaccckkk

So I’m back from my big bad personal retreat and feeling kind of all over the place. It was a good time away but I think it was also good to come back. I was at Crieff Hills near Guelph which is quite nice. I highly reccommend it for your retreat and conference needs. I stayed in this little house that was super private and my only complaint is that the sofa bed was less than comfortable. I read the last of my Urbana books (only took me 6 months) and was pretty challenged by it. I think it was called Meeting God in the City or something similar and it was basically just things that this dude had learned and experienced in the city. It was good. I also read the book of Micah and the book of Amos (and part of Isaiah) while I was away. Give Amos a read sometime… it’s one of those books that needs to be talked about but it’s creepy because you could assume he was talking about North America and everything would still make sense.

It’s interesting how things happen while you’re away. I had 18 new emails (probably more than half spam) and one or two facebook messages to return to. That makes me laugh because I am a general email/facebook addict and yet I go away and not that much really happens in the virtual world. Other things did happen while I was gone… I returned to a crisis at work this afternoon that is really taxing our summer team. It’s another reminder of how messy it is to actually be involved in people’s lives. It’s also a good reminder of how weak and powerless we truly are.

I’m starting to feel a bit stressed about the summer. I feel like we haven’t gotten enough planned for day camps (and I feel like there’s never enough time to get anything done… but maybe that’s because I keep going away). I’m frustrated and confused by this new situation at the church and I still have no idea what God wants me to do about the various injustices I see in this world. I learned this evening that neighbourhood Shane Claiborne (author of Irresistible Revolution) and the Simple Way had a fire and they (along with many neighbours) lost everything they owned. It made me sad… and yet strangely hungry for an experience of being so a part of a neighbourhood that you could mourn that with them. I think that is perhaps the message God kept repeating most clearly while I was away… I need to make an intentional move INTO my neighbourhood. Now I’m just wondering whether I find a community first or move and then invite people to join me… I’m getting impatient with waiting but I can’t see the second option being the best for my mental and emotional health.

Anyway, there are still a lot of things running through my head… and a growing to do list. For now I am going to go and do something that requires no brain power… like reading a children’s book or something. I will post again after the weekend as it promises to be somewhat busy.

Pictures

I forgot to post pictures of Kelly’s grad in the last post so here they are now.

A Weekend at ‘Home’

Home is a relative term I feel… when I’m in Sarnia I refer to Hamilton as home yet when I am in Hamilton I still refer to my parents’ house as home… it’s a habit I’m trying to break… but that really has no bearing on how I spent my weekend which is the real substance of this post.

Kelly’s graduation on Thursday was good. She successfully walked across the stage and received her fake diploma… that’s right, they held all of the diplomas until you brought your gown back… you traded your gown for your diploma… have they had issues in the past with people stealing gowns? They’re bright red and made of who knows what… I’m thinking they wouldn’t really be that hot of a commodity.

We went for dinner at this restaurant in Covent Gardens (I think that’s what it’s called). Then I went to visit Dart and Brad at their new house. It’s tres nice and it was great to see Dart again.

Friday I went to camp to visit Kosmo and Fiona. It was great to see them again… and they have so many awesome ideas for the upcoming summer. I am so proud of them! They showed me how to play Hillbilly Golf and I helped them plan Staff Training Week. Oh, and the highlight of the trip was finding out that after 7 summers at the camp I’ve finally made the brochure. That’s right… bottom centre of the first page there is a picture of me and the little girl that was in love with Dave… SO cute!

Friday night I continued my house tours by checking out Barb’s new farm. She had kind of painted this less than pretty picture for us back in April so I was prepared for a disaster but really it wasn’t that bad. There is a lot of work to be done but Barb and Rene are enjoying that aspect… Rene was installing a new kitchen sink while I visited Friday. Friday’s visit with Barb also involved a trip to the new Walmart Super Centre which is open until midnight and has everything you could ever imagine. I’m not entirely sure why places like this need to exist (and be open until midnight) but it was an interesting experience.

The rest of the weekend involved a trip to the cemetary and visits with both my grandmothers. Saturday night I was able to watch Pirates of the Caribbean on TV with my dad. This morning I saw my cousins at church. One of them had gone on a 2 week exchange to France in May so I heard all about her trip. Now I am back in Hamilton and all is well, except that the light in my bedroom is burnt out and it’s in one of those light fixture things that I think you need a screwdriver or something to get off.

On a completely random and exciting note… I am having dinner with Jeff tomorrow… I haven’t seen that kid since September which is really sad since we live in the same city. For now, I must continue to unpack and clean… my house is a mess (I do not remember it being a mess when I left on Thursday but oh well)

Family Pride and General Emotional-ness

I’m heading to London in a couple of hours to attend my sister’s graduation. I’ve been having a really strange week with many different emotions running through my body. I feel like each of them is fighting for control and could at any time highjack my brain and take over my life. One of those emotions is immense pride in my sister. My sister is not afraid of what people think about her… she knows who she is and lives by that. She has a wisdom that is rare for her peer group and I have learned to appreciate her so much over the last few years. I have been bragging to everyone that she is graduating… I think our summer team have probably heard it more than enough times. I am greatly looking forward to watching her walk across the stage, shake someone’s hand that she’s never met before, and become a college graduate… I hope I don’t cry!

After that I’m heading to Sarnia for the weekend. Actually, before I leave London I’m hoping to see Darda and Brad’s new house… but then I’m going to my parents’ house. Friday will include a trip out to the camp which is going to be difficult but good. I have been missing camp a lot lately and am not entirely sure why. I was talking about my general emotional state with Dan last night and realized that I haven’t really done a lot of processing this week so it was quite difficult for me to articulate how I felt. I am also seeing Barb’s new farm this weekend (man, my friends are getting SO old). It should be a great weekend and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll post all about it on Sunday or Monday when I get back. For now I need to finish packing and spend some time with Jesus.

The Multi-Generational Church and the Power of Stories

This afternoon I was forced to come face to face with my own prejudices and ugliness when I decided to attend a women’s meeting at the church. Most of the women that attend are older but a few younger moms that I’ve connected with were interested in coming today because they were having a potluck lunch. I agreed to come mainly as a support to those women… and the promise of free food may have helped me make the decision too!

It’s really easy for me to judge older people… easy for me to scrutinize how they look at the tattoos and screaming children of the single moms I connect with… easy for me to read into the distance they put between themselves and those same moms. I fell into that quickly today and was fairly frustrated by the whole experience. After lunch we gathered together to share stories. The women have been talkng about how we can find God in our stories so today they ‘celebrated’ by telling various stories from their lives. As I sat and listened to these stories my eyes actually began to fill with tears. I listened to these women of God tell stories of faithfulness and obedience that spanned over 8 decades. I heard stories of God’s character and how He had been made known to these women in different parts of their lives… and I realized how quick I had been to write them off. I say with my mouth that I believe in a multi-generational church but I realized today that my actions (and my current though patterns) were not supporting those words. The words of Psalm 145 spoke out to me today… the Psalm is talking about God’s greatness but verse 4 says “One generation will commend your works to another;they will tell of your mighty acts”… and that, my friends, is why God believes in a multi-generational church.

Sometimes I feel like I can really relate to alcoholics

and this is one of them… my babysitting charge is gone and I have the distinct feeling that if I had any alcohol in my home I would be celebrating with some sort of heavy drink on the deck (but I don’t even have a deck). Instead, I’m going for a run… will post more later.

If I wasn’t convinced before…

So, I guess I’ve always kind of known it would be hard to be a parent, but man, this weekend has really given me a higher level of respect for the single moms that I know. I have enjoyed my babysitting experience, don’t get me wrong. Friday night we went to see Surf’s Up which was enjoyed by the seven year old but was possibly the most horribly scripted/voiced cartoon movie I’ve ever seen. Saturday we went to the CityKidz Family Fun Day at Dundas Driving Park. As always, when I spend time with CityKidz I was impressed by the closeness of relationships that the kids have developed with the volunteers at CityKidz. We had a great time doing all sorts of things. We even got to check out the splash pool which was probably a highlight for us. We spent the afternoon watching Princess Diaries (there is something about that movie that makes me want to have a horribly irresponsible high-school relationship with Michael’s character… pathetic, I know) then we went to the park for a little while and then to McDonalds for dinner.

Let me tell you a bit about our McDonalds trip. Now, we couldn’t go to the McDonalds right across the street because it didn’t have a play place so we hiked it a little ways (not actually that far) to the one by Gage Park (hence why we stopped at the park first). While we were playing in the play place all these kids came in from a birthday party that was going on in the restaurant. Now there is this basketball game in the play place that you are supposed to pay money to play. It’s 25 cents to get about 8 balls that you can shoot. So a bunch of the kids just start climbing all over it, into the part where you get the balls out so that they don’t have to pay to play. Now, I didn’t really know what to do because I don’t know where their parents are so I’m kind of ignoring them. Then this little boy comes in. He takes one look at them and you can tell he is horrified at their behaviour. He walks up to them and says ‘Sorry but I don’t think you’re allowed to do that’… so quiet, so cute… and actually believing (I think) that they would care. It made me wonder where kids learn to live by the rules. I think some kids are just tempermentally (is that even a word?) set up to care more about rules and structure. This kid quickly stole my heart but I also wondered which was healthier, or perhaps if a healthy balance was needed.

We spent the rest of Saturday playing Life and then watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I guess because I don’t have cable and we can’t watch tv but I’m not entirely sure that watching three movies in one weekend is healthy. Today I would really like to check out this flea market nearby but I’m not sure she’ll go for that. I will update later about how the rest of the weekend goes and any deep thoughts that come to mind.

Just a quick update

Not much to say but I’m babysitting this weekend so I’ll be out of blog commission so I thought I should at least post a quick update about this week. Let’s see… what have I done? I had a great discussion this afternoon with a woman who has been recently connecting with our church. It’s awesome to see how God is growing inside of her. She kept telling me how much she appreciates our conversations while I’m trying to get her to believe that she too is a blessing to me.

Programs at the church are going really well. Having the summer students there has been great. I don’t know what I’ll do in September when they all abandon me for higher education.
The kids are starting to get really attached as well. It’s cool to see the girls from GirlZone really start to respect and care for the students. I think this week, for me, was a real turning point in seeing those relationships develop and it was cool to watch. GirlZone has been going SO well since the students took it on. They are doing some really awesome things with the girls and it’s great to have so many extra hands. I am really praying that we will be able to have a bunch more leaders throughout the school year too.

Last weekend I spent a good deal of time with Sanda which was such a blessing. I appreciate that girl SO much! We watched Blood Diamond (good movie, but VERY violent) and then went to see Ontario Pioneer Camp’s production of Seussical on Saturday. Three people we knew from university were in it so it was neat to see them perform. The whole cast did really well and I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

There are some new leads opening up in terms of intentional community. It seems like a bunch of different people are talking about communal living lately. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks I will be meeting with a group of strangers who are already involved in a discussion about what God is calling them to in the city. It’s pretty exciting! Monday is also the second large-group meeting at Wentworth about our own transformational housing possibilities. Much is happening in this great city… God is truly at work!

I think that’s all I have for now. I will try really, really, really hard to blog early next week about my weekend of babysitting which I am truly looking forward to. I will also possibly attempt to reflect on something semi-important for those of you who enjoy my posts that have substance.

Lessons from Jesus – in the form of a 12 year old

Earlier this week a strange thing happened at the church. Wednesday we have our after school program for the jr. high age girls. As they came in, a bunch of girls kept telling me that there was a man laying outside the church on the grass. I assumed that he was suntanning or something and didn’t really think too much about it. It wasn’t until one of the girls came and made it very clear that the man was unconscious that I began to be concerned. We went out together to check out the situation. By the time I got out there the man was waking up because kids had been throwing water on him as they passed by and being pretty rude to him. As he woke up I attempted to ascertain if he was hurt and needed medical assistance. It became very clear very quickly that he was not hurt but he was incredibly intoxicated. He reaked of mouthwash and his words were slurred. He had trouble focusing his eyes on anyone and could barely put together answers to my questions. My immediate response was to try to get him off our property as quickly as possible but this girl who had originally alerted me to his presence was with me. She kept asking him if he was okay and offering him food and water. She kept telling him how it was such a good thing that he fell asleep in front of a church because people elsewhere wouldn’t have helped him (keep in mind that at this point I’m trying to decide whether to call the police to help this guy along). At one point I think she even told him we would pray for him. This kid is not a Christian. Any time I invite her to church she quickly and clearly declines and yet that day she modeled compassion and mercy much more readily than I did. It was almost like watching the story of the Good Samaritan play out in front of my eyes. Jesus is clearly teaching me that I have much to learn.

Eventually we got the guy up and bought him a bus ticket so he could go somewhere. He may have sold it for more mouthwash but we did get an opportunity to talk to him a little bit and I can only hope that Jesus used us to offer him a little bit of hope that afternoon. I must say, I think that is the craziest thing that has happened since I started working at the church.