There are posts on this blog from almost the very beginning of my writings on the internet. Imported from Blogger and other places. I like to read them every once in a while. It’s a sort of self-checkup, or a state of the person measurement. Have I lost touch with anything? Am I radically different in any way? Have I stayed the course?

It’s odd, really.

Three years ago, I had heard the name Noam Chomsky (for instance), but really had no idea what he wrote, or what he believed. I hadn’t encountered that yet. My study of the pysical sciences (albeit an off-and-on flirtation rather than a serious study) hadn’t brought me to the inescable conclusion that the earth at least looks monstrously old.

I probably wouldn’t have used the word “monstrously”.

If I were pressed, I’d have to say that I don’t particularly like looking back. Not, of course, because my history is so completely devoid of merit that I can’t bear the sight of my former self, but because it’s pretty useless. Do you know anyone so enamoured of the past they can’t envision a future that doesn’t resemble it? I’d rather not be that person.

I’ve done very good things. I’ve done very bad things. I am not, however, trapped in the glare of either. By God’s grace, I move forward; but in moving forward I also look back. To guage, or to measure, or to plumb.

Call it what you like. I don’t mind.

In a whole blog comprised of what some might mercilessly call navel-gazing, I reserve this short time to glance over my shoulder and contemplate.

I’ve changed, you see. Not in the way that some of you like I might mean, as if I’m somehow qualified to say, “I’m better!” I don’t know. Sometimes I think that. Sometimes I even want that. Yet, I am different in some way, in some etherial sense I can’t put my finger on.

Maybe you know how this is, one day looking back and seeing that you’re just not that person anymore, not just in ways that can be readily qualified as “good” and “bad”, but in ways much more subtle. In ways that defy symmetry.

Here’s the difference between now and then: I’m not going to tell you how. I’ll let you guess, if you even care, which I really can’t be sure of.

There’s an entire series of posts before this one. I can vouch for their honesty — if that means anything to you — but you’ll have to read them for yourself.

Find some time when you’re bored.

Changes. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2007-09-21.

You think to yourself, there is a reason. And yes, you’re right, there is. Or maybe there isn’t and you just don’t realise it yet. That’s the obscenity of the whole thing, isn’t it? Even in these things you need to believe a reason’s out there somewhere, when the simplest and easiest answer is that there’s no answer at all.

If you turn over the coin, people suck, and people do horrible things to eachother, and people aren’t worth it. Then again, you and I aren’t so different in that we do horrible things to other people, are we? We simply do different horrible things. And while this may sound to you like a measure of equivocation, I assure you it is not. It’s the difference between throwing a brick at someone’s head and mortaring bring upon brick until someone is suffocating and must somehow escape.

Different people escape differently. There, that was equivocation. Of course, it’s still true. The truth of it doesn’t make it right, though it’s still true. Remember that. Different people escape differently. You may find yourself in a long line of people scrambling away, if you keep turning that coin over in your fingers.

I think there’s something about yourself that you don’t know. It must be, because in all the years I knew you, there was something about you didn’t know either, and I was as close to knowing you as I think anyone’s ever gotten. Do you remember talking about the distance? Was it me, or was it you? I still don’t know, and in all likelihood never will, though I’ll stop caring in a while.

I still think there’s something about yourself that you don’t know. I hope you find it, and face it. I hope you stop the dichotomy of self-love and self-hate you’ve always seemed to present.

I think to myself, there is a reason. Of course there is. Nothing never come from nothing. Or something always comes from something else. I don’t believe for a moment in things a priori. The simplest and easiest answer here is, of course, that the answer is somewhere you have yet to look.

The simplest and easiest answer. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2007-05-23.

What really struck me was how everyone I used to know seems to be having children, and how everybody I know now is either pregnant or shooting for it. I’m 25 and I have no children. I’m not even married. I’m an oddity.

But I don’t feel left out of this child-rearing thing. Maybe that’ll kick in someday, but right now I just don’t feel the desire to father any little ones, blessing though they be. It’s not a problem either. Common sense will tell you not everyone can be called to make a family; and though that sounds like equivocation, I assure you it’s not.

It’s not even a game of oneupmanship. I really don’t care. My sister Lisa is having a kid, and that’s a great thing for her. My mom had eleven, also a great thing. I’m not kicking sand in anyone’s eyes. I’m just saying, “You do your thing, I’ll do mine, and we’ll all be fine.”

But if ever having the cutest kid with the coolest baby clothes and accessories becomes some sort of contest to be won (as, I’ll admit, my family and extended family are very wont to make it into), I’ll have a little laugh I guess. Or maybe a cup of coffee. Growing up a status symbol isn’t fun.

Blogs are wonderful things. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2007-02-15.

Are you willing to die for it?

Are you willing to die for nor only your freedom, but for the freedom of your enemies?

I am.

Are you willing to stand up to abuses of power?

Are you willing to be offended by the voices of others?

Are you willing to speak and be the offense?

I am.

Are you willing to die so that your Muslim countryman can spread his religion free of governmental interference?

Are you willing to defend your opponent’s right to say what he likes?

Are you willing to lay down your life so that those you believe to be dead wrong can speak?

I am.

I am. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-12-11.

The fact that it doesn’t have a price tag on it doesn’t mean you’re not selling it. It certainly doesn’t mean you’re not buying it. That you simply rebranded yourself different without changing anything speaks to that fact.

Well, you say, this here is different and that there is different and we don’t do this and we don’t do that, so clearly we are not this and are that. But there it is, your shopping cart of isms and isn’tms. It’s gloriously subtle. But there it is.

You’ve got a bit of time to power down, so you decided to read this. Why? You decided to feel threatened because clearly this is for you. Why? You threw up ten reasons. Why?

Because, silly. You’re going to think what we sell you. Simple, easy, pervasive. The irony is it’s not what you think. It’s something else.

It’s not what you think. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-12-04.

This morning I dropped off some tools in Mississauga; I walked through the shipping receiving door, and was greeted by the smiling face of a 70-year-old man in a turban. So he was Sikh. But that’s not what this story is about, so much as how the English Bits of his brain seemed to be malfunctioning: he began gabbing at me (not to me, but at me), making hand motions whilst spewing out words that, while being words that I know and love, weren’t arranged in any particular order and seemed to be chosen quite at random. All of this together isn’t so strange. Old men do sometimes get a little batty, and sometimes their employers continue to issue paycheques through some fluke of the system or some misguided sense of duty. What was strange, however, was when he hopped onto a fork life – that’s right, a fork lift – and drove it Evil Knievel-style across the plant floor. At which point another, younger man called across the shop for me to not “pay any attention to him”. But he’s driving a forklift!

It was my mother’s birthday yesterday, or at least the celebrations thereof. We ended up going to an all-you-can-engorge-buffet where we, true to our genes, engorged all we could. But it was good. Though of course my mother gave herself a birthday present and commanded no alcohol be consumed. We ended up giddy with laughter anyways, between Elyssa and her banana-flavoured natural remedies, me and the five-axis Imperial March, Rebekah with her trademark mix of clueless humour and pop-culture references, and Kristin asking me what she considered “hard questions”.

I like it when people surprise me. Like, when one of you asks me a question I didn’t see coming. Something stunningly out of the ordinary. Something unexpected. Yet for the life of me, I can only think of three times in my life I’ve been knocked on my ass, hard. In the same breath, I only like being surprised after the fact; I like to see things coming.

The Kahvi Collective rules. A netlabel, all electronica, all free. Some of it is repetitive, some of it is boring, some of it is just plain bad, but the majority of tunes on Kahvi are quite listenable. Plus, you can download in both OGG and MP3 if you like.

Do you ever drink from the keg of victory? I have, today. There are a lot of jobs on time: this has a lot to do with the company quoting more realistic time frames to customers, not to mention implementing processes that facilitate streamlining and reveal untapped synergies. Someone, tell me what that means.

You’re surrounded by technology every single day. Do you know how to use it? Why not? I’m not asking if you know how to program in C or write and embedded OS or name for me the top three web application platforms. Just, do you know how to use it?

I wish I could be another person for a day, so I could watch myself. Have you ever felt like you would annoy yourself greatly? I want to find out if I would. Or, if there was some way to videotape myself. But then, I already like watching my videoblogs enough (I know, I’m Narcissus), and I have a feeling I’d be too entranced watching the video of my life to care enough about being annoyed with my foibles. This is not to say that I’m perfect, or don’t annoy anyone; it’s simply to say that I have an ego the size of Kansas.

On that note, I watched Dark Side of the Rainbow, and I seriously don’t get what the fuss is. If anyone sees connections between the song and movie, it’s got to be in their mind. Weird how humans are wired to find patterns where there are none; or perhaps how the universe is wired to create patterns.

The creation vs evolution debate: how important is it to you?

No one’s said anything funny today. It’s a shame. We’ve all been terribly work-oriented and probably just a little bit bloated.

It occurs to me that the photos of people eating cake below are all of my relatives. Rebekah is my sister, Elyssa is my sister, Steve is my cousin by marriage, Stu in my uncle by marriage, and Jerry is my uncle by marriage. The odd thing is that both Steve and Stu were not dating their wives (did they even know them? Someone clear this up.) when they started working here. So, Matthew Reckman, how are you planning to wedge yourself into my family? I wonder.

This calculator comes with a manual the size of small novel. I don’t want to calculate pi to the 1,000th digit guys (I’m not that white and nerdy). I just want to do some basic trig, and some arithmetic.

That’s it. I’m back to work, doing thangs. Please remember that I value and will try to respond to your comments!

It’s one of those Fridays. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-11-03.

Just to remind you all for no reason… originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-10-29.

Anyhow, I had spent this entire weekend feeling sorry for myself. I admit it. If I’d been a kid, I would have been crying in a corner, holding tight on my blanket, and sucking my thumb. As it was, I was just crying in the corner. Metaphorically, of course. You know how long weekends are fun because they’re, well, longer than normal? And because you have free time to do what you like? I took half of Thursday off, and all of Friday, essentially adding a day and a half to my weekend. The unfortunate thing is that I had the flu. So I spent those days in bed, drinking lots of fluids, and basically sleeping off the sickness (a strategy that, in retrospect, doesn’t seem to have done much good). But even the drugs didn’t help.

By the time Living Worship rolled around on Saturday night, I was grumpy as a bear, a condition you probably won’t be able to perceive unless you know me well, or I’ve just yelled at you for nothing at all and then apologised five minutes later. For some context, by the time I got to Living Worship, I was even grumpier, as I hate traffic, and some gomer had decided to go ahead and smash his car into a transport truck on the 403, making the 403/QEW combination resemble a Wal-Mart parking lot two days before Christmas. Did I mention I hate traffic? I really do.

I had just hopped out of the shower after my convalescent activities of the previous days, having done nothing more than check my email once. I hadn’t been on IM, I hadn’t checked my feeds, I hadn’t talked to anyone for about two and half days. Had I done those things, I might have been aware of the high-level talks going on between various parties the nights I had crawled into The Cave and hibernated. But such as it was, I was clueless and unaware, a lamb being led slowy and inexorably toward my soon-to-be-revealed slaughter.

After Living Worship most of the band plus me and a few other dignitaries went out for good food and some Guinness, during which time I devolved steadily into yet further depths of Oscar the Grouch’s garbage can of self-pity. It didn’t help that my neck had begun to ache again, and with it my head. At the end of the night I simply picked up from the middle of a conversation and left, such was my outlook at that point. I drove to Nick’s house and settled onto the floor of his bedroom where I spend a great deal of the night waking up from the pain in my neck. But through all this I suffered in silence (though you may ask Nick if I screamed in agony much during the night: he was a mere metre or so away from me).

In the morning, feeling better, I gulped down altogether too much coffee, and got into what I can only describe as a bowel movement with four wheels (Gus’s sub-woofer equipped Mazda), travelling with Nick and Gus to The Bridge where I was greeted with just the right sermon based on an extended metaphor about weeding and seeding and several other rhymes. Side note: you may not be much for visuals during sermons, but the picture of a Burdock root is with me still, probably one of the most context-appropriate visual metaphors I’ve ever been priviledged to have grace my eyes. In any case, I also had a chance to comandeer the drum kit for the last set, as the usual drummer had at that point gone AWOL. And you know me, I never give up a chance to play kit.

The day progressed in much the same monotony, with the exception of a game of Reversi which I tied with a first-time player of the game, to my chagrin. Let it be noted, however, that I’ve never tied that game before, and beat Nick and Laura handily later that evening.

We went to the evening service at Living Water, which was complete with a sermon that gave me some things to think about. I also purchased a paintball gun. Not at church, mind you, though that was where the verbal agreement took place.

A few other boring things happened – though the coffee that punctuated those boring this was (in the words of a certain faux-French female) tres delicious – and I had a bomb dropped on my head. Have you had a moment where the completely unexepected happened to you? Blind-sided you, even? Well, in light drizzle, with cigar breath, it happened. In the immortal words of Switchfoot, you finally lit the fuse that’s in my head.

The challenge of unexpected things is they don’t lend to making roadmaps; I’m something like a political analyst working on a politician’s campaign, in that I don’t really like things I can’t measure and understand and hedge and diagram.

I am so screwed. Last night, I didn’t get a wink of sleep. Today, I worked half a day; on top of being exhausted, I was also sick.

So here I am, writing this out, so I can remember it. I forget a lot of things, and I thank God for my brain’s unique seive-like abilities or lack thereof, but I thought it’d be best if my personal narrative included this entry.

You should understand that the language I’ve crouched this post in was conceived by a part of my psyche that like to play things close to the chest. I’m so screwed, yeah, but in a good way. Not that good way. The other good way. I’m excited.

Feeling sorry for myself; sleep; the flu; doin’ thangs. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-10-24.

But it’s time to spill the beans. I’m thinking of moving. Mississauga has been nice. It has been good to me, seeing me through rock, hard place, and everything in between (me). It’s just this basement apartment. Great vishnu, I’m getting tired of it. I want a bedroom proper, and a bed proper, and a view of somewhere, and a balcony.

It’s just that I hate the prospect of actually going anywhere; if I move where I want (much closer to Toronto), I have longer to drive to get to work, and I frankly couldn’t keep going to Living Water. But I also have all those things I love about the city – the convenience, the freedom, the masses of people, the culture, the activities. I guess my point is whether or not I’ll get over the apprehension and do anything about this desire.

If you didn’t already know this about me, every once in a while I go through a terribly rebellious streak. Or not rebellious as much as desperate to change. It makes me wonder what I’ll be like when I’m 40, frankly. That desire has, right now, driven me to start writing a novel, meet new people, get out of myself, and start serving at a homeless shelter in Ontario. So far so good. But I’m also sick of where I am. It was good for a while – but I feel trapped in my environment.

Some of you will never understand what this is like. It’s as if my life suddenly turns on itself. It’s part sober reflection, part spontaneous abandonment. Not that I’m some tortured soul slitting his wrists so he can feel real, but I am at that place where I understand just how staid, boring, normal, and predictable my life has become.

And how lonely. Mississauga hasn’t been good to me in this way. During my time here I have met a total of three people, all in the same place. The only place to really meet people is at church, and by the time I located a church that didn’t suck eggs, I had already joined Living Waters. Or at work, but where I work sees virtually no visitors.

It’s a strange place, my life. It’s a strange time, right now. Sometimes I wonder how I could ask anyone to be a part of it. You’re not going to know me in three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen years. You’re going to find yourself staring at a different person with different goals. Maybe smoother around a few of the edges, but pushing out more edges in the meantime.

It’s why I have no one driving passion, no particular goal in my life. It could be music, it could be literature, it could be career, it could be family, it could be a thousand different things that I’m good at. But no, I’m caught up in one thing, then I turn to another, and then another, and then another.

Ask me sometime if I want this to change. The answer is no. Am I addicted to the adventure of being different, or am I simply scared that if I stop I’ll be just like everyone else, or that’s just the way I’m wired. Maybe I’m representative of an entire generation or something. I just don’t know.

I’ve considered this blog post all morning. It seems as if I’ve written more than I had meant to. You judge.

Can’t pick a title. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-09-19.

Maybe it’s because last night I went to bed annoyed. Maybe it’s because this morning I didn’t get enough sleep. Maybe it’s for a thousand reasons escaping me now.

But I can’t seem to shake it – my stomach curls in on itself, in knots, in tangles. As if something bad is about to happen, and there’s no way for me to stop it. No way even to see it coming.

Just when everything was going right; oh but this time I hope I’m wrong.

Knots originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-09-11.

Introductions aside, I’ve been having a series of vivid dreams lately. Digression: you can tell how well I am doing personally – mentally – by how often I blog and by my dreams. When I’m fine, I hardly dream at all. Maybe because when I’m fine I have less time to think, as I’m out doing things. Am I the only one in this? I don’t think so. But I’m probably the only person I know that actually blogs about my dreams (though I’ve yet to decide what level of pathetic it involves). And if you see me blogging a lot, that means a lot is going through my head, and as invariably happens, it ends up spending time on your screen. How much? You choose.

YouTube is down. My noodles are still too hot. Maybe I’ve learned to type faster or some such.

Some of these dreams are not fit to be written, I admit. But the strangest of them was a rather surreal trip through an entire supermarket for what felt like hours with – well, let’s not mince words here: a former girlfriend. Surreal because the supermarket was not selling food or anything else one might expect to find in a supermarket. It was selling houses, and in the proceeding hours after the dream happened I still cannot figure how they fit the houses into the building. Nor do I remember what either of us said, except that I remember speech of some kind. What I do remember is the instant after waking up knowing it was just a dream, something of a departure; usually the dream fades and with it fades any security in possible futures. I just remember waking to the facts, and to the regrets, and to the guilt.

Ah the noodles are a good heat. Let me eat inbetween typing.

Maybe you think I’m quite the odd duck for letting a dream deconstruct my equilibrium. Or perhaps there’s a better explaination. See, tomorrow I have a date. Yeah you heard me: a date. And some of you are scratching your head, going, “I though you said rebounding was stupid?” Bollocks. Who am I to know anything? It’s not rebounding: it’s taking a chance, making the shot, sinking the putt when you really need to. Maybe I’m just saying I don’t have the stones to pull myself up by the shoestraps anymore. Maybe you all will reply that that sentence made, quite literally, no sense. But shit, I’m sick of sitting on my hands.

Pot noodles sure are a good source of… something. I’m no dietician!

Bravery; what is it? Going forward in the face of fear? Something like that. Some of you will wonder what I have to fear. And I will tell you I fear doing it wrong. Screwing up. Getting in deep and pissing all over it. I will tell you that I’ve found the enemy, and it is me.

I suddenly enjoy these noodles much less. Cardboard crap in a bucket…

Meditations on a Sunday evening. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-09-03.

It’s odd how people appeal to me as if I’m a good person. Where do you get this idea? You should instead appeal to my baser instincts. They’re much more likely to respond.

It’s odder yet how we build images of ourselves as we’d like to be seen, isn’t it? Anyone honestly looking can find theirs. I am strong; I am confident. No, I am scared; I am terrified by the world.

There are words I say to evoke the appropriate reactions. Falsehood, yes. There are things I do to make things easier. But I am no knight in armor. But in the end these are not games, nor am I moving pieces to attack or counter-attack. It is what it is. Maybe it’s bullshit.

I am becoming who I am. It bothers me. I am falling in love slowly. It frightens me half to death. I have told you everything inside of me and you still think yourself the worst of us two. Different you this time. But I am letting the fear pass through me and I think you should too. There’s no compelling reason. I will simply give you what I have never given anyone before. It isn’t much. It’s just all of me.

Looking around my apartment I fail to see a trophy. Nothing won. I feel like a stranger these days, to myself, and to my supposed friends. I am moving soon to a new place to match what’s inside of me, so I can be a stranger in a strange land.

Spill originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-08-26.

Here’s a post for you to read. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-08-18.

Can you be honest without being a jackass? I think so. Try mixing humility in there. And please ignore that I’m not very good at humility or honesty. Or not being a jackass.

Honesty and the Jackass. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-08-17.

One last thing: some lyrics for your eyes from Mae’s Embers and Envelopes.

We write to apologize. We ask to look past life as it goes by.
I know you have sacrificed time, life, love, time to fly.
Please consider all things trite, forgiveness will be the thing that gets us by.
I know to have something like this broken is hard to fix.

Embers, we’re burning bridges down. Envelopes stuffed with feelings found.
To write this down as means to reconcile.

We write to patch things up, maybe not to agree but to proclaim love.
Let’s look ahead and then we’ll see the One whose glory never ends.
And based on that we’ll see, there’ll be room for change, but gradually.
I know to have something like this broken is hard to fix.

If all is said and done and over, if we don’t have to, we’re not going to.
Make the change, it’s worth the try. What’s broken can’t be fixed tonight.

Bullet points for a TGIF. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-08-04.

Sunday I go to church. Twice, even. For most people, that’s a little bit of overkill, and to be honest with you, I see no good reason that there should be two church services instead of one; the fact remains there are two, so most weeks I attend both. My church has good preaching, another thing I enjoy: it’s not often I am challenged spiritually outside of those sermons – except for my good friends, thank you. Often I have to challenge my thinking based on the drama of scripture; though I’ll be frank and admit I have a difficult time placing myself under it instead of over it. I’m no genius, that’s for sure; I may be on the cusp of brilliance, but always on the cusp and never actually fully there. All the same, I have the same crippling burden of knowlege and ego to go with it, and scripture constantly plays the hammer to my self-loving nail. In those moments, I’m glad my mind can’t come up with the ten thousand ways to escape from underneath it: I am not so smart as to avoid God where he shows himself.

That’s not the end of it, though. Church is community, and I enjoy my friends, their conversation, their company, and at the end of the day just love the fact that they’re there. Some of them could live a little closer – you know you should all move to Mississauga, the Bedroom City – but all the same, there they are.

A great lazy day, too. I’m not sure about all the Sabbatarians out there, but I fully enjoy Sundays just doing nothing at all. Then again, you know me: I get bored quickly. It often turns into a time to play piano, play guitar, read a smashing novel, tinker with my own mind to find how very awkward its geometry is, or talk about anything at all under the sun to anyone who can return words.

Monday is different in every way. Monday is the rush of adrenaline, the loading of springs, the bustle, the flow of things coming and going. I’ve never – as far as I can remember – had a boring Monday. Every customer calls on Monday, and every package arrives. Employees come to work ready to hit the bricks: we always get a lot done on Monday.

And at the end of the day I collapse into bed, feeling like ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag, but aware how in one day I’ve actually made a difference in someone’s life. Even if that difference was merely getting tools to them on time; I may be a small cog in the economy, but I’ve done my bit. And my bit is good – it makes me happy.

Monday also seems the best time to catch up on a weekend’s worth of stories. Elyssa, as always, will have puttered around the house; Rebekah will remind me she’s still guyless and enjoying her life; Jerry will walk through the door, coffee in hand, ready to pawn off on me another hapless female; Steve will have put yet another piece of trim somewhere important in Casa Anjema; and Daryll will still be eyeing my head for his skull collection. I’ll walk over to the manual department and maybe get one of those date-filled cookies from Stu, and we can all have a mighty laugh at what outlandish garb Brian may or may not be sporting that day. I love stories; thus, I love Mondays.

This Sunday sticks out, though. For some reason it’s the best one I’ve had in months. If you were to ask my why, I could list several reasons, but at the end of examination I simply feel better. Or, as Nick says, we’re welcoming back the Dan we haven’t seen in two years.

Maybe that’s the meat of this post: I feel like I’m finally getting somewhere, but that place is closer to where I started. Am I wiser for the wrong road taken? Yes, and in that sense there is no shame in having walked that way, but in another sense a cloud has lifted from over my head. And it’s good to feel it go. And it’s bad to feel it go.

Do you know what I’m talking about? The movie Swingers does, in its own testosterone-filled way. You live with something so long, good or bad, when it’s gone, sometimes you miss it – simply because you were used to it being there. Yet, I was no more certain of my future a year ago than I am now; but with the kite string untangled and that old fabric and wire floating away, I can do it right this time, whatever this time holds. Or I can do it better. Or I can at least give it the ole college try.

Like I said. It was a good Sunday.

Sunday was a good day. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-07-30.

I never thought I would say this. Really. I still have a dream of having the five solas tattooed on my arm, but there’s something about the emerging church that’s very, very attractive.

Maybe it’s that they give a crap. They realise the old ways aren’t working, and despite the flailing arms of a few of the weirder ones, they’re finding ways to influence culture and create infective community. I can respect that no matter what theological racing stripes you wear.

I’m giving some thought to this today: what am I doing where I am to create community, to reach out, and to find ways to play the drama of scripture in others’ lives? The answer, I’m pretty sure, is nothing.

This is the question: how much of my wonderful Reformed theology would have to go by the wayside? None would be a wonderful answer, but let’s face it, there’s about five Reformed churches in Mississauga. To imagine a missional Reformed church (even a missional Presbyterian gathering of any sort) is a bit too much to ask.

My emergent sympathies aren’t that strange, I don’t think. They’re an outgrowth of a growing question: what am I going to with my life? And how am I going to do it? And how does it become something that isn’t simply about me, my goals, my ambitions, my dreams, my prosperity, my exegetical boxes, my razor-edged beliefs, and my own self-fulfillment?

I have a confession to make. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-07-28.

The best feeling I can think of is meeting someone it seems like you’ve known your entire life: how was she not there in all the memories I have? Someone who, when it comes down to crunch time, will hear out the worst of those memories and its cascading repercussions, but also hear out the best and smile along with me as if it was her own. Someone who loves coffee almost as much as I do to the point of a beverage being how we met in the first place (a boring, altogether charmless story Hollywood would be ashamed to film). Someone who I can relate to on so many levels, emotional to physical. Someone, in the last analysis, to be there.

The worst feeling is a settling understanding that despite the seeming perfection, I am not simply her friend, nor she mine. She is someone you know well enough to see the reciprocity. The only difference being – no, the defining difference being – that she doesn’t see how lopsided this will become. Or, she sees a difference of opinion where I see an unfalthomable gulf. She is someone who I connect with on every level except that most important spiritual level.

I ask myself what to do as realisation dawns. For a moment I question my resolve, even question whether or not that absence is as important as I thought, and at the time it seems such a small thing, such a tiny obstacle. But I know how this plays out, at least I think I do. A stand must be made, and I must be the one to make it: the cascading repercussions of giving in are lessons I am supposed to have learned.

Then I say things to her I know will seem proper later. The drama is over; I’m stage right again. My friends will proceed to encourage me. Former lovers will say sooner is better than later. And I will say tonight I am frighteningly alone: I miss her. Not her potential, or her ideal. I miss her.

Some voice within me says, be calm. Be rational. Be mature. I pray, and the prayer connects me to the God I must believe is behind these movements. I am not alone, not really, but I still miss her.

It was the best of feelings / it was the worst of feelings. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-07-27.

But how often do people react with faith? It’s a crutch, it’s imagination, it strikes too close the bone – but maybe it’s the only way you can stand up again. It’s what give strength to let go.

At least, that’s what people tell me. I think it’s true.

Dealing with disaster. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-07-24.

I know some of you will read this and wonder how anyone could ask this question as the answer is so patently obvious for you. But it’s not for everybody. It certainly isn’t for me. And before I begin this, you should know that I do not believe that complexity is better than simplicity; it’s not inherently more noble to struggle through layers of crap than to know exactly what’s what. Gregory House, for instance, is a complex genius. He’s also a completely friendless asshole. Some of my most geniunely straightforward friends are, on the other hand, true joys to hang around by virtue – I think – of that quality.

But seriously. I got four hours of sleep the other night (I was up late watching Scrubs, and eventually I just couldn’t doze off), and I found myself that morning a completely different person than I was the day before. This change didn’t present normally. There was no irritablity as such, no irrationality. Instead I became a super-confident, verbose, funny (yes, funny), annoying, clever speech-making moron.

It’s a bit of a shock now. Now that the four hours of sleep are 24 hours behind me, that is. I’ve never held to change as a rapid mechanism – for instance, when couples break up and want to stay that way, distance is a very, very good thing – but I hadn’t seen that side of myself for, wow, it seems like half a year or so.

Then it came to me how many different people I have locked up in here. Or how many facets. I don’t know. It confuses the heck out of me most days, because I can be the jock, the sensitive artist, the confidant smooth-talker, the complete geek, the passionate debater, the smartass kid, the comedian, the penatrating advisor, the sympathetic ear, the on and on and on and on, but at the end of the day none of those things define me as a person. Each and every one of those comes out on its own depending on when you catch me. For instance, I tend to become very introspective late at night, as anyone who has hung out with me at a coffee shop will know.

I always get a kick out of people who tell me what is and is not me. Once, I knew a girl who would tell me to knock off using big words to make myself sound more intellectual. Something that always frustrated me because I use big words, I just do. Not only that: how does someone who’s known me a few years on and off expect to know me better than I know myself? I’m as confused as the dickens here, and I’ve been living with me for upwards of 24 years!

So yeah – those of you who do want to know me, few that you are, this is all I can assure you of. At some point you will come to see bits of me that will confuse, terrify, and devastate you. And if you’re lucky that’ll be outweighed by the times you see in me something truly worth keeping despite the rest.

Introspection blah blah blah. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-07-22.