awkward . . .

So my friend, who I will call here Flaura had this amazing convo with her friend, who I will call here Cordan. Their interaction with each other is always awkward. My life is made better because of it.
So a couple days ago she came to me and said,
"So I was in the entrance way to the caf. and one of the coat racks was missing. So Cordan walks up and I say, 'there's a coat rack missing.'"
And he says, "Hey I'm good. How are you?"
"I'm good. There's a coat rack missing."
"Oh. So how are you?"
"I'm good."
"Is that what you said?"
"No I said, there's a coat rack missing."
"Oh. Okay, well see ya."

Does that not just fill your heart with happiness and gratitude? Gatitude to Cordan for being so wonderfully socially awkward.

Then today in Apologetics class I turned to my friend Lindsey and asked "So where do you live in Regina?"
And she said, "North."
"East?"
"North."
"East."
"North."
"Not north east?"
"No. North."
"Oh."

Please allow this delightful awkwardness to make your life a little brighter.

To the Left . . .

To the left of this post was a video bar. I only wanted the one video but I didn't know how to download it directly to my post. My brilliant roomate however, discovered how and thanks to her, you can now watch the video below.
So watch it. Gather your thoughts and then read on.



So I'm taking Apologetics this semester. I am beyond excited. I've wanted to take this class for about 2 years now, so I'm pumped it worked out for me to take it this semester.
For those of you who don't know, apologetics is the defense of the faith; in Christian terms anyhow. Did you know that an apology, is not the act of saying sorry, its actually the art of making a defense. So as a Christ follower seeking to expand the kingdom, I am going to learn how I can more profitably defend my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ so that others may also come to believe.
Tyler Oakley, who I have loved from the moment I heard him make this claim, puts down an incredibly valid arugment. The argument that Christianity sounds insane. We have to admit this. Especially to those who don't believe. But the other reality is that, as believers, we have found hope in this thing we call Kingdom life. Hope that keeps us going and helps us live life to the best of our ability. The writer of the book of Hebrews calls us to always be able to give account for the hope that we have. So for those times when I inevitably encounter people like Tyler, I'm going to need to be able to do that well.
So here I go. Wish me luck.

A life well lived . . .

I don't visit my Grandmother very often. She doesn't really know who I am and mostly speaks to me in German. And she lives six hours away.
But one time, a little over a year ago, I did go visit her. It was also around this time that I realized my love for Senior Citizens. My realization came almost completely from my interaction with one Lady.
We were hanging out with Grandma . . . I showed her my iPod. We talked about Christmas . . . well I talked about Christmas. Then we wheeled her over to a different area where there was this very elderly woman, whose name I don't know. This woman was nearing her time to go home to Jesus and the evidence of her longing to do that was clear. This woman could barely raise her head. So she took the time she had with her head bowed to pray. I was just standing there, aimlessly, when I heard the low rumble of this woman's voice. She was praying outloud. So I sat down in front of her. She prayed ferverently to God in a way that made it seem as though this interaction with him was the most natural thing in the world for her. She praised Him unendingly. Then when she would stop she looked up at me (kind of) and spoke of his blessings; and as she spoke of his blessings she fell back into prayer.
As we were leaving I leaned in and told her that her soul blesses the Lord. I had to repeat it three times because she couldn't hear me. Once she did, though, she stated how much she truly loves him and began to pray once more.
I left changed.
The next morning we went back and I saw her eating breakfast. She could barely consume a banana. I prayed that the Lord would take her home soon; as that was clearly the greatest longing of her heart.
I want to be like her. I want to live to speak and praise God. And I'm convinced that her ability to do that didn't come from her age. It came from a life lived in that fashion. I want to live like her.

Shoveling Miracles.

I reccently survived the most intellectually engaging modular class of my Bachelor of Arts.

It was without a doubt my favorite class of all time. Followed closely by my studies in G.K. Chesterton.

On the first day we discussed in great length the absence of Laws of Nature in the presence of God as creator. Nature comes from the Greek idea that nature, and its laws, are completely separate from the whims of the gods. Their emotional fancies could not affect the consistencies within nature at any given moment. The question at hand therefore, was that if God is the creator of all things and is continually active within his creation can there be these so called laws that seem to be separate from him? Out of this came the questioning of miracles, as we know them to be; a violation of the laws of nature. Could it be that so called "laws of nature" don't exist but rather they are God acting within his power to order his creation as he sees fit?

So then we discussed the idea that miracles are not violations of the laws of nature but really God and his creativitity manifesting itself in a way that arrests our attention in order to draw our focus back to him as the all powerful creator.

Joel From went on to toss his keys up and down approx 40 times to demonstrate that a simple act of gravity is in fact a miracle. The problem, then, is that we refuse to see that simple act of gravity as such. We refuse to acknowledge that the daily, consistent aspects of our life in this world, as they really are: miraculous.

John Donne said in one of his sermons that, "There is nothing that God hath established in a constant course of nature and which therefore is done every day, but would seeme a Miracle and exercise our admiration, if it were done but once; Nay, the ordinary things in Nature, would be greater miracles that the extraordinary, which we admire most, if they were done but once . . . only the daily doing takes off the admiration."

That last statement, I find to be particularly powerful.

I arrived back at school on the night of the fourth of January to find my driveway embedded with snow. Lots of snow. So much that I could not park. Later, as I was shovelling this snow and my back was beginning to hurt, I was hit with this thought. I was in fact shoveling billions upon billions of beautiful, individual miracles. The fact that God in his creativity deemed it good to make every snowflake different and yet dump billions of them upon us at a time should never be thought of as ordinary. How did we get so far as to think that it is?

I suppose the only way around this is to conciously think of every action thus. But that takes a lot of time and a lot of energy. So I suppose the point of this is to just say that having been made aware of this, I want to somehow uncover my eyes to see the constant manifestations of the one that I follow. In the fast paced world and society that I live in, however, I recognize the difficulty that goes along with that. So I welcome your input. What are some practical things I can do that will enable me to see less of myself and more of the Lord my God, as I so ardently long to do?

For Karlie . . .

This one time I joined track to get out of a day of school. I used to do hurdles in track but I was tired of that. It's a lot of training to run two races. So I picked Javelin. This wasn't a good idea. The farthest I ever got it was 12 meters. 12. Do you know what the Olympic record is? 71.5 for women. So anyway this was all to get out of a day of school. So I kind of trained. But not really. So I get to the meet, which is like 2 days before my grad. But I had this huge wait before my event so I went over to my friends house and she did my nails for grad. Then, I had to go throw Javelin. Another bad idea. I'm pretty sure I didn't even breach 6 meters. It was pretty lame. The guy doing the measuring was giving me throwing tips. My whole family was there along with 4 (max) other spectators. Me and my best friend did it together to get out of the day of school. But she's pretty athletic and could get the thing like 20 meters. So she got to move on to SWAC and whatnot.

This is her favorite story, about me, of all time.