Tuesday, September 27, 2005: 7:51

I am back at the sugar bowl. Twice in two day seems like a lot, but I think I would like to come back here all the time. I am a little disappointed because the sugar bowl is one of those places that is laid out just so, so everybody likes it. It turns out I am just like everyone. They just played a song by Archade Fire which is another new band that is all the rage, and I, just like everybody else am totally wooed by them.

I am going to come here often. I like just being here and typing on my computer and spending more money then I should on the food here. I want to write more, and I like writing here so that is that.

There are more sunrises and sunsets this fall then in any I can remember. It seems that every time I step outside the sun is either rising or setting. Don’t ask me to explain it, but it seems to be as wonderful as it is impossible.

On our way home from work we passed a tall, raggedly dressed man standing outside of a storage yard for various large pieces of construction equipment. He looked like homeless people do with greasy hair and mismatched dirty clothes and a very worn face only slightly obscured by heavy scruff, but of course I don’t know if he was homeless. Anyway, what made him interesting was that he seemed fully engaged in scratching the neck of the storage yards guard dog, a rottweiler. Rottweilers are bred to be vicious, to be animals that do not like you and will attack you before you give them cause. It seems like man betrayed man’s best friend when he set out to make such an unhappy creature. And yet these to were so happy in each other’s company. I wished I was scratching the neck of nasty guard dog who was trained to kill me.

Homage to Ryan - I have never been in to reading blogs, and I am still not. Much like newspapers, magazines or anything that seems quick and easy to read, I cannot get through them even when I think I really want to read them. However, once I did read an entry by Ryan Gurnett. I was impressed by his writing. Light, entertaining, clever and even thoughtful, though he didn’t do that anoiying thoughtful thing to death.

His entry was on his finally caving in and buying carhartts, which are a sort of symbol of status or something in the framer’s world. Today, I too bought Carhartts. You can buy them with and easy conscience because they are very practical, comfortable, and most of all durable, for all the wear and tear of putting up houses, but it is strange to buy something that you are so glad to own.

I bought something new, I’m typing on my new laptop in my favourite coffee shop eating prawns and drinking a beer, correction, a strongbow cider. It is too bad I have to go to bed or else I would smoke a cigarette, drink a coffee and stay up all night in this most beautiful of fall weather and lounge languidly in my sloth and bliss. I am a glutton for pleasure. I hope that this keeps making me so greatfull for everything for everything I have and doesn’t make me too selfish, but right now I’m just going to try to enjoy it.

Peace out everybody, I hope you sleep well.

Monday, September 26, 2005. 8:23

I am sitting in the Sugar bowl at 8:00 at night. It is already very dark outside and as usual the dim lighting creates a calming atmosphere even with the half a dozen conversations all competing with each other and the music, by a band you probably haven’t heard of. I have ordered myself a water, a coffee, a bowl full of all sorts of strange things that I think is an Indian concoction, both spicy and sweet. These are all just to top off the Thai grilled chicken that I ordered because I haven’t eaten supper yet.

I am treating myself because I feel like I need a treat. I don’t really feel like going to work these days, and yet work seems to be almost all I do. Normally I think I would like working. I have always said I like how work simplifies life; when you are working you know exactly what you are supposed to be doing, but this time I feel like I should be doing something else. If you were to ask what I was “supposed” to be doing, I would probably list off a bunch of social activities, which may seem a little ridiculous, but I don’t think it is. On top of that, I might say that I think I am supposed to be moving to Vancouver. Although a similar feeling comes to mind, and this occurs to me only as an afterthought, and not because I actually think the two feelings are related, but this is not the only time recently that I have felt like I ought to be doing something other than what I am doing.

The table in front of me is crowded. The laptop takes up a lot of space on a small table, and it seems like things work out better when one is either eating or typing and not trying to do both. The cream, sugar, salt and pepper, a candle, a napkin, and my garbage, which includes a wrist band from the hospital today, all make the table look cluttered.

Was that silly of me? To just mention the hospital so casually like that? Well, yes, I am a little anoid that I dislocated my shoulder at work today. For me dislocating my shoulder is not a particularly noteworthy event, but this time it was my right arm, which has never happened before, and… well, enough of that.

I really like the look of table tops. I have long talked about taking pictures of them to make an album, and I think I am going to do it. One of the projects I will take up while I am in Vancouver. I am really looking forward to going to Vancouver.

Well, if I have my way, I’ll convince Becky and Russ to go over to the King’s house tonight so that they can have a hot tub with Ashley and I, but I haven’t gotten a hold of any of them yet, so we’ll see.

Friday, September 23

Another day. Right now I am in Three Hills, that is the name of the town, not just a description of geographical features, to watch two of my PIT girls, that is, girls who were in a personnel training program at camp this summer which I facilitated, play volley ball. Coming back to people you really care about is important.

Yesterday I saw a brief clip of the news where they reported that a new version of the Bible had been put together called “The 100 Minute Bible.” The purpose was so summarize the contents of the Bible into a manageable size. The Bible has been weighed, and calculated and its sum has been simplified. We have taken the unmanageable and managed it, as if God’s submission to our understanding was essential in his action. Does this Bible include Jeremiah something something? Let me offer it to you, and I ask you to read it with a careful eye so that you get all that this fantastic passage has to offer. That is, watch for the punch line.

The Israelites had been living in rebellion against God, but in a new fervor to serve Him, they renounced their sin and promised to free their slaves as God had commanded. This was a system set up in Jewish law that allowed slaves only to be kept for seven years before they were given up and set free.

However, after having obeyed God in this, and being true to their vow to follow Him, they changed their minds, once again turning to evil, and recaptured their slaves. And so the word of the Lord came to them through the prophet Jeremiah who said, “Since you have failed to declare freedom for your slaves as I commanded, I now declare freedom for you: freedom to die by the sword, plague and famine.”

So I don’t know if that passage made it in. I would hope that it does, but that isn’t really the point.

Post Script: I drove across the high level bridge today, speeding and singing passionately and I wondered about whether I was silly or not.

September 21

So I went over to Wednesday Night Supper at the Bennett’s today. Wednesday Night Supper at the Bennett’s is a social ritual that developed last year out of the goodness of Mrs. Bennett’s heart, combining her gifts as a host with her desire to bring people together and has been a blessing in the lives of many young students who are given a community, but more importantly, a home, to be a part of.

It was good as usual. There were typical conversations about Christian involvement in culture, with the usual cracks at the quality of Christian product with the vouching for Christians to challenge themselves to be better and to participate in the “seven pillars of civilization” pitted against the desire for Christians to have entirely different aims then the rest of culture. This led to an in depth discussion of the value of home schooling or Christian education vs. the public school system, which yielded some very interesting information which I will no disclose here so as not to deprive you of discovering it when you to get your chance to have one of these conversations. If you do not often converse with large groups of Christians, then I suggest you find some so you to can enjoy one of these conversations, which are just fine if you are in the right mood.

At evenings end I walked out to the car (my friend and boss Peter’s station wagon. His sister’s actually, but she lives far away in the mountains) and was surprised to find that it lacked 4 ½ thousand dollars of tools that had been present in it when I had last seen it. Peter and I have just started a framing company in which he provided the expertise and I provided the capital which had allowed us to buy the tools that were no longer there.

PSYCHE! It was the wrong station wagon. Everything turned out okay.

On a note that I am not really ready to talk about too openly, I’ve had some pretty intense events taking place in my life recently and I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to feel about all of them, which often makes me feel like a basket case, but I got a chance to talk to Lisa today, and it was so good for me. She made me feel normal again, and that is what I need these days: a good dose of normal. So I go to bed tonight a more content person. Goodnight all, thanks for listening.

Sept. 20

Today was an important day.

I am working as a framer for the first time in my life. I have worked 5 days, one complete week, and I am still pretty slow at things but I am getting better. However, my boss, who is a very good boss, wants me to be faster, to get better faster, and today took active steps to help me improve.

He knows I am afraid of heights, and being afraid of heights is not a good quality for a framer. I have worked at heights before. When I worked at The Refinery my first year I had to climb up towers a hundred feet high on ladders and raise and lower all our equipment over those ladders, and at first your legs shake and I feel sick to my stomach but it isn’t long before I get the hang of it. However, the safety precautions at The Refinery are extensive and so I never really had much to fear.

More recently I climbed up a tower on the top of a mountain that was probably at least 100 feet high, and by the time I was on my way down I felt at ease hanging on the ladder and doing chin ups.

But none of these situations have the potential for falling or tripping or dying that my new job provides. It is frustrating because most of the time I am asked to do things that I am totally capable of doing. I can walk on a beam. I can. I’ve done it. And yet, when I am up there everything seems much more difficult. In fact, it actually is more difficult sometimes, because it is harder to walk on a beam when your knees are shaking.

So I was given some jobs today that freaked me out. I had to nail in some studs that were lying on the gap for the stairs. It was probably pretty safe, though it is hard to tell when you are scared out of your mind, but the drop there is two stories plus the basement, so it’s a long way.

Anyway, the day before I had just gotten used to walking on the walls and the beams of the second floor, and I really think I had that down, but my boss didn’t see my progress, all he say was that now I was afraid of these new things that were even higher or more sketchy. So finally I was given the job of patching some OSB to the outside of the building that was high enough that I had to climb to the top of the wooden ladder (wooden ladders are notoriously precarious) with the OSB, which acted as a sort of sail for my ladder/sail boat and a staple gun, to make sure I didn’t have any hands to hold on to the things that weren’t there to hold on to anyway.

While I was up there I had to rip off some two by sixes that were attacked to the wall, and the force of my prying and pounding would sometimes send the top of the ladder sliding along the wall of the house I was leaning against. So I took forever to do the job, but not because I was freaked out, because most of the time, when my ladder wasn’t actually in the process of falling over, I was fine. But my boss was really doing me a service. He was sending me off to do things that I wouldn’t have done if it were up to me, and it made me more capable, and made me less afraid. What a good boss.

But something more important happened today as well. I found something that I have been missing for a long time. I’m trying to remember when I lost it, and I thought that maybe it was last September, but it turns out it may have been as long ago as the December previous to last September. I found my sense of humor. I remembered what humor is, what I find funny, and what is so good about it. I hope I don’t lose it again.

I was on the top of a ladder, the wind was blowing my OSB and I was trying really hard not to drop it at the same time as balancing the ladder that was shaking as I climbed, still feeling a little nervous that our compressed gas powered staple gun would shoot a staple right through me and I heard a fire truck fly by on a nearby street with sirens blazing, and I thought to myself, “This isn’t so dangerous after all.”

So that is it for now. May you always awaken to a life full of the greatest gifts you can receive: goodness, humility and joy.