Annal 182: Tale from a Bowler Hat of Observations

I am currently sitting on an armchair watching my niece and nephew play wrestle with my nephew's bowler hat.  The hat that he informs me I don't wear "right" (silly hair... I should just chop it all off and then I could wear the aforementioned chapeau).  The two of them are giggling away, excitement building over the night ahead of us.  My brother and sister-in-law are making homemade pizza (actually, it was a group adventure of grating, chopping, and drinking pineapple juice), and once it is ready the five us will be nestling down in the living room for an evening of Avatar: The Last Airbender.  I'm pretty excited about this night :)

This last week has been wonderful.  I spent it at my practicum school which is a fantastic place.  The staff is incredibly welcoming and my SA (School Associate--the teacher overseeing my in my practicum) has a very similar personality and teaching style to me which I think will work well.  And several of the other student teachers are a little jealous because of my SA.

It was amazing to be in a school again.  I gained so many ideas for things to try in my own classroom, and I can hardly wait until my short practicum begins in two weeks.  Then I will get to spend four weeks in the school and will actually get to do some teaching.  Which I am nervous about, but I know the sooner I start the more comfortable I will feel.  I have the material for my first lesson and have to spend the the next two weeks reading The Lord of the Flies.  I had a wee bit of a shock when I realized just how many years had passed since I was in grade 11 and read that novel.

Words truly cannot begin to describe the peace that has flooded me this weekend.  The week had some rough moments of stress, what with being in my school and adjusting to those new surroundings.  I think one of my dreams perhaps best shows the strange mixture of excitement and stress that was my mind.

Take a moment and picture the following scene:

I have been put in prison (strangely, prison resembles my parents' lovely dining room... go figure).  This is no solitary confinement, however, for I have a prisonmate in the form of Samuel L. Jackson (not sure why he was in my dream, but in it he was).  The two of were given incredibly deadly, lethal looking blades and were to take part in a contest, the winner of which would be given a "Get out of Jail Free" card.  What was the contest, you may ask?  It was a leg-shaving contest.  Whichever of us could get the smoother shave on our legs would be the winner.  Samuel was pretty certain he would beat me.  He had been practicing.

I woke up before I discovered the better leg-shaverer.

Believe me, I have been trying to think of some deeply spiritual meaning that I could pull from this dream.  Sadly I've got nothing beyond the fact that I should continue to shave my legs everyday because I never know when such a skill will get me out of prison.

Yet despite the stress and anxiety, this week has ended with peace. 

This morning I read a few things during my devotions that really caught my attention.  In The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton, I am working through a chapter entitled "The Strangest Story in the World," by which he is referring to the story of Christ.  I am going to share a section with you that took my breath away.

"The primary thing that he [Christ] was going to do was die.  He was going to do other things equally definite and objective; we might almost say equally external and material.  But from first to last the most definite fact is that he is going to die... We are meant to feel that Death was the bride of Christ as Poverty was the bride of St. Francis.  We are meant to feel that his life was in that sense a sort of love affair with death, a romance of the pursuit of the ultimate sacrifice.  From the moment when the star goes up like a birthday rocket to the moment when the sun is extinguished like a funeral torch, the whole story moves on wings with the speed and direction of a drama, ending in an act beyond words.

"Therefore the story of Christ is the story of a journey, almost in the manner of a military march; certainly in the manner of the quest of a hero moving to his achievement or his doom."

After this, Chesteron goes on to compare the life of Christ with other epic tales or stories told of great philosophers.  He mentions Apollonius, the supposed "ideal philosopher" who, when brought before the judgment seat vanished through magic.  To this Chesterton replies:

"Jesus of Nazareth was less prudent in his miracles.  When Jesus was brought before the judgment seat of Pontius Pilate, he did not vanish.  It was the crisis and the goal; it was the hour and the power of darkness.  It was the supremely supernatural act, of all his miraculous life, that he did not vanish."

Reading these portions of the book I found myself taken back to this last winter and spring.  I recall the times when Christ revealed Himself to me as my Hero.  I remember how He pursued me, how loved He made me feel, the care and the time that He took for me, the way He made my world come alive.

And perhaps that is the best way to describe how I have felt these months since leaving school in the spring.  My world has seemed to lack that supernatural brightness.  I suppose I allowed myself to become less aware.  It was as if I had forgotten that, as the Heidelberg Catechism states, "Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God's commandments and of never having kept any of them, and even though I am still inclinded toward all evil, nevertheless, without my deserving it at all, our of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me."

I have been having a hard time putting my finger on why this week seemed filled with just a little more peace.  Why, despite the stress and the worry, I could hear a Voice talking me through it all and I was able to listen to that Voice.  While doing my devotions this morning, I think I found my answer. 

I'm beginning to remember.  I'm not just looking back and thinking, "Oh wow, God really showed me some cool stuff," which I think was a bit of my problem this summer.  I kept looking back but  not allowing what happened then to affect me in the now.  I'm in a new situation right now, dealing with completely different things, but God has not changed.  He is taking the time to show me, yet again, that He is my Hero.  He is reminding me of all He has done, while showing me that He is not done teaching and leading me.  I suppose I just needed a little reminder of who of Hero really is.

This is my story.

Annal 181: Tale from a Rainy Run

Today was my first "real" rainy day here on the West coast.  I have been able to enjoy an incredibly fall with gorgeous weather, but after Thanksgiving the sunshine came to an end.  Clouds have been rolling in and today I actually got to use the lovely umbrella I was given for my birthday.  At this moment I'm sitting at my desk listening to the rain falling outside.  It's black out, so I can see nothing, but the world definitely sounds alive.

This has been a wonderful week.  I spent three days involved with some community organizations which gave me a chance to not only think about curriculum and how I could teach certain topics, but also allowed me to get to know other people in my module.  I even got to get a little crazy with them (there may or may not be video footage out there of me sailing a tugboat).  And then today I was able to actually be in my practicum school observing some high school English classes taught by my SA (School Advisor--he's the guy who gets to help me become what I hope will be a fantastic teacher).  He actually reminds me a lot of my oldest brother who is also a teacher, so I think it will work well being his student teacher.

Tonight didn't quite work out the way it was supposed to, but I am rolling with the punches.  See, I'm a small town driver, or a highway driver.  I'm not a city driver (or at least I have to drive a route a few times to really feel comfortable with it).  The reason I say this is because tonight I was supposed to head into the city to get together with people from my module.  We were all going to relax, recap our week, and just enjoy being together.  I was pretty gung-ho about this.

And then I kind of got lost.

Don't worry, this tends to happen to me.  I have become quite the expert at back-tracking :)

But the result is that I am now back at home.  On a Friday night. 

Sometimes I'm convinced I must truly be the most pathetic university student out there.  I go to bed early, get up early... I feel guilty leaving the house at eight in the morning because my housemates are all still in bed.  Someone in my module pointed out that I seem to be living as if in Charming's time zone.  Maybe there is some merit in that thought.  Or maybe I am just an old soul :)

This morning I went for a run in the rain.  It was as though overnight the world became fully immersed in fall.  The trees were a little more bare, the ground a little more clothed, and a slight mist hung about my surroundings.  Truly, it was breathtaking.

I have been working my way (very slowly I'm ashamed to say), through G.K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man.  There was one point I read today that I originally wanted to share with you all, but as I was slowly flipping through the book I came across a quotation I had underlined sometime over the summer.

Chesterton said, "Behind all these things is the fact that beauty and terror are very real things and related to a real spiritual world; and to touch them at all, even in doubt or fancy, is to stir the deep things of the soul."

As I ran this morning my soul was stirred.  To be honest, my route felt like something from a dream.  Only in my most vivid imaginings do I actually see branches adorned with red, or leaves the size of my face lying upon the ground.  Only in my imagination does mist rest upon pools of water and rain drops kiss my face as I run, unafraid of my early morning appearance.

This morning I believe God was telling me He loves me.  And after a week of trying to be more aware of Him, I kind of needed that.

Now to see what tomorrow's rainy run will hold ;)

This is my story.

Annal 180: Tale from a Zombie-Filled Thanksgiving

Being that I am Canadian I had the honour of celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend.  I travelled to my brother and sister-in-law's home about an hour away to spend the weekend with them and was also able to visit with my two sister who were there for the occasion as well as my sister-in-law's sister.  We had an incredibly full house, experienced incredibly full stomachs (mmm... pie....), and even though I am using a cliche I will say that I experienced a very full heart.

I also learned a few things about myself this weekend.

I discovered that my three year old nephew and I enjoy "drinking" each other's brains.

I discovered, thanks to the board game "Last Night on Earth," that in case of a zombie apocalypse I can beat back the undead hordes with my bare hands.  No need for shot guns or axes over here.

I discovered that trying to sing along to the cd in my car at 4am when driving my youngest sister to the airport is not a good idea.  I would love to blame it on the cold I have had for the past week... but the truth is I just shouldn't sing that early in the morning.

And I discovered, upon a beautiful walk to the market this morning, that I have been putting my life on hold.

More specifically, I have been putting God on hold.

This isn't a fun or easy conclusion to come to.  In truth, it is humbling beyond words.  Last year was a time of incredible growth for me, a time where I came to depend on God for everything.

This year has begun and I feel like all I am doing is trying to get through it.  I don't want to set down roots here.  I run at least four mornings a week.  I go to my program and get along fine with the people there.  Then I come home.  I hide out in my room and usually fall asleep between nine and nine-thirty.  Sometimes I visit with a good friend of mine here, sometimes I go to my brother's place for a weekend, and sometimes I have a Skype date with Charming.  My days are peppered with calls home to talk with my parents.  Once a week I have a phone date with my cousin.

This is my routine.

Routine is not bad.

But today I realized that I have been hiding behind this routine.  Hiding to extent where despite doing my devotions I have taken pretty much no time for God.  I stopped going for walks in the same capacity as I did last school year.  When I walk I am usually focused on something else.

I feel like I have closed myself off.  And I'm not sure why.

After dropping my sister off at the airport and making it back home just after seven this morning I went for a run.  I switched up my route and ran into the rising sun along a tree-lined road.  I listened to some worship music.  I came home, showered and unpacked, and then went for a walk.

And on this walk I finally confessed how I was feeling to God.

You see, I have been hiding and closing myself off, but I wasn't even admitting that to myself.

Through all of this I made another discovery.

I am incredibly blessed.

This year definitely has some trials.  But I am blessed.

I get to have family living just over an hour away.

I'm in an amazing program with people that I love visiting with and have the ability to develop some great friendships.

One of my dearest friends lives less than an hour away and I get to see her at least once a week.

I may be in a long distance relationship but I have a guy who actually thinks I'm special (and I guess I like him too).  And don't get me wrong, the distance REALLY sucks, but for now it means that I have a little more time to try and immerse myself into my life here.

I just got to spend a weekend hanging out with all but one of my siblings and with a niece and nephew whom I love (and who enjoy crawling into bed with me in the early hours of the morning).

I have a family that has done everything it can to support me this school year, especially given the surprises that have come my way.

Leave to God to use a zombie-filled Thanksgiving weekend to finally get through to me!

This is my story.

Annal 179: Tale from the Pumpkin Patch

I went to a pumkin patch yesterday.

It was a beautiful fall day, I wore my red coat, and I got to do all of this with a very good friend of mine and her adorable nephew.  I had forgotten how therapeutic it can be to hold a baby.  Something about cuddling, that feel of being needed and being able to at least somewhat fulfill that need, is incredibly comforting.  Prior to this I was able to play with this baby's three year old brother.  We built a lego house, played catch, and he taught me how to mow the lawn.  He also told my friend that I am from a movie.  And not just any movie, but a love story.  However, this is no ordinary love story.  It is a violent love story.

I had no idea ;)

I also discovered that the Winchester brothers from Supernatural were filming in my favourite little town out here this week.  And that they and the cast of Fringe were also filming in another nearby community.  Which led me to a decision.

When I die and these shows are filming a 50 year reunion episode or some such thing, I will happily dedicate my grave to be theirs' for the digging.

I suppose these are all indicators of the good week that I had.  I got a chance to do a group micro teaching assignment this week and was able to participate in a Terry Fox Run at the elementary school that houses my module.  While heading out for this run a grade three girl stopped in her tracks, turned, looked at me, and said, "You look really pretty."

Yeah, I pretty much died right there.

I have also been contacted by two old students in the last two weeks telling me they miss me and want me to come back to teach them.  Again, talk about a self-esteem boost.

I also purchased my plane ticket to fly out east to visit Charming in December.  72 sleeps until I leave (not that I'm counting or anything pathetic like that).

And at this moment I have my headphones plugged in and am listening to Michael Buble singing "All I Want for Christmas is You."

Today I tried out my first church too.  The last few weeks I have always been away visiting friends or family so I just went to church with them.  This was my first Sunday at home and so I decided to try out a church suggested to me by my pastors back in Prince George.

The church was huge (the sanctuary seats over 1000 people), much bigger than anything I have ever been to before.  My cynicism over church came out as I caught myself trying to pick out things that might irk me.

You know what?  Ultimately I just felt at peace while I was there.

Yes, it is a huge church and one that I will probably get lost in.  I know it has a really good young adults group, but trying to figure out how to get connected might be difficult.

And then you have the fact that I'm only here for a year.  I know I need to live like I actually live here, but when it comes to church it's hard.  Especially since this area is so huge and it takes ages to get anywhere (or so it seems to this smalltown, northern girl).  I came to the realization that what I really want in a church this year is a place where I can go on Sunday and I know that what I'm going to hear is solid teaching.  I'm so tired of leaving churches feeling angry or frustrated.  I'm tired of being cynical.  So when I sat down in this church and just felt a peace settle over me it was a welcome change.  Next week I am visiting my brother and his family for Thanksgiving (yay!!), but the week after that I think I will try this church out again.

So I had an interesting revelation over the last couple of weeks but haven't mentioned it because it sounds incredibly fluffy and I'm scared everyone will just laugh at me, or shake their heads and say something like, "There she goes again, attempting to be poetic."  But I'll share it anyway.

The first few weeks of this education program were spent getting to know who we are, what makes us tick, where we come from, and how all of these things influence us as teachers.  Most of it I just laughed inwardly at and tried not to puke.

But something hit me as I was drawing chalk pastel pictures about where I come from and writing poetry to go alone with it (yes, this is what I'm paying money to do).  The faculty member doing this with us kept driving home the geography of the places we come from and how it shapes us.

I began to think of all the places I have lived.  I thought of being a little girl in Ontario, running across the field behind our house as my brother shouted for me to "Run like the wind."  I thought of moving to the arctic where the wind chill made the temperature about -100 degrees Celsius.  Of living near the prairies or in the mountains where the winds nearly blow you off your feet (or off the roof where you are checking exhaust fans).

And then I thought of some of the posts I wrote last year.  Posts where I shared that the moments in nature when I most acutely felt God's love was in the moment when a breeze would stir, playing with my hair and caressing my face.

I never understood why such a thing would so greatly speak to me.  Why a breeze would be the perfect representation of God's love.

The answer came to me a few weeks ago.

It's because no matter where I lived and how diverse those places were, the wind was a constant for me.  Wind broke through every boundary.  It didn't care if I was living in Southern Ontario or if I was in my parka on the tundra.  The wind found me.

What better a representation of God's love?  I serve this incredible God who takes something that seems completely unrelated to His love, the wind, and uses it to wrap around my heart.

Sometimes He just amazes me.

This is my story.
 

Annal 178: Tale from the Park Bench

I actually started and published this post earlier today but after church, lunch, and a drive home from my brother and sister-in-law's place that may or may not have involved random periods of crying, I deleted said post and am starting afresh.  The first one was good as it helped me slowly piece together what I was feeling and identify (as much as was humanly possible), what was going on.

This week has been a great week.  Last weekend I got to explore Fort Langley where numerous television shows are filmed (like the show Once Upon a Time).

(This is me in front of what some of you might recognize as the Storybrooke Town Hall).

My youngest sister flew in on Tuesday and spent the week with me which was fantastic.  I got to spend a day in a school where grade eleven boys told me that weird girls are the best because not-weird girls are boring (hurray for the quirks!).  I am developing more friendships in my program (even discovered a girl whose boyfriend has the same name as Charming and the same strange affinity for cats).  Heck, I even walked into a parking meter on a relatively busy street in front of at least one-third of my module, proving to the world that my lack of coordination is something I will never grow out of.  We filmed short movies and I got a chance to let, for a little while anyway, my creative juices flow. 

To top it all off, I got to spend the weekend with my oldest brother and his family.  This means that Saturday morning I woke up to cuddles with my niece while this morning it was cuddles with my nephew.  We played games, I developed what is sure to become an obsession with the Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon show.  I played some World of Warcraft which mean even more cuddle time with my niece and nephew as they gave me advice on what to do (they are five and three, by the way).  I talked blogs with my brother who started his own a few weeks ago (which, by the way, I will post a link to if you are interested in reading up about various theorists and how he applies them to video games), and got to go to church with them this morning.

My point is, this has been an awesome week.  So why have I spent the weekend feeling like I would cry at the drop of a hat?  I can't even blame it on PMS.

I think I may have pinpointed my main problem, and it came from a reflection of a random event that occurred last night.  After dinner my youngest sister asked me to go outside with her because she found this lovely park bench covered in autumn leaves and she wanted to take my picture on it.

This morning, as I was reflecting upon my strange desire to want to cry, I thought of a picture I have.  It is up a park bench by a lamp post and I love it.

Five years ago God gave me a word.  I kept this word as the banner on my phone up until a year ago when I got a phone that didn't allow me to have banners.  As a result I have forgotten about it.

The word was Waiting.

Over the years it has come to mean numerous things to me, but as I reflect over the last few years I can see why God gave it to me.  No year has looked like the one before it.  No year has been spent in the same place/home.  Life has seemed like one period of transition after another.  One long period of waiting, you could say.

I was talking with my brother yesterday evening about a bit of this.  I feel like I am being pulled in multiple directions.  Part of me is here at school and part with my brother and his family an hour away.  Part of my heart is with my family back home, and part with my sister and friends that are in Prince George.  And then there is a part of my heart that is across the country.

And nothing kills me more than feeling like I'm useless.  Than knowing that someone is hurt, sad, exhausted, or lonely and knowing that there is nothing I can do to help them.  Like yesterday when Charming got in a bit of an accident (he's totally fine, by the way).  Because of my phone I didn't get the image he sent telling me about it and so I spent the afternoon with no idea of what he was going through.  When I finally found out I felt like the most useless person in the world.  There was nothing I could do to help.  I can't give my sister a hug when she needs it. 

My time has waiting has now brought me to a place where I am away from those I care about.  And this at times make me feel like my heart is in pieces.

But my Dad commented on my original post with a bit of information that has made me pause.  He told me that I have to live like each place is permanent or else the strain will be too much.  And he's right.  But it's hard because I don't want to treat this  year like it's permanent.  But I'm here.  And I'm enjoying myself here.  And I need to be here if I want to move on to the next period of my life.

It was interesting because part of what I read in my devotions tied in with what the sermon I heard this morning said.  Both dealt with the idea of the sovereignty of God (a subject that not a lot of people like to get into a discussion of).  The Lord's Day 10 in the book I'm reading about the Heidelberg Catechism discusses the first part of the Apostle's Creed and deals with who God the Father is.  It deals with providence/sovereignty.  I'm not going to get to heavily into this but I just want to mention the three things Kevin DeYoung about why we can take comfort in the idea of God's providence.

1. We can be patient when things go against us--God knows what He is doing with the pain in our lives.  Joseph's imprisonment, slavery in Egypt, and killing the Messiah were things that didn't make much sense at the time... but they do now.

2. We can be thankful when things go well--these point to the unmerited favour of God.

3. We can have confidence for the future--maybe all my worries will come true, but God will never be untrue.  He will lead me, listen to me, and I can rest in the knowledge that nothing is happening that He does not know about.

I may feel useless, but God is not.  I may be in transition and life may seem up-in-the-air, but God is constant and unchanging.  Things may happen that seem to make no sense to me (like not sleeping Tuesday night because of sharp stomach pains, a racing mind, and nightmares, or getting rear-ended, or only getting half of my student loan), but lots of things have happened in my past that have not made sense that only now can I see their purpose (my Mom's cancer or the events that led to my getting my Charming).

I'm loving being on an adventure, just hating some of the consequences of adventuring away from those I care about.  But I am here.  And God is here.  And He's got this whole thing covered.

This is my story.



*Also, here is the link to my brother's blog*
http://thebiblesalesman.wordpress.com/