The Unchurched.

I'm skipping church this morning, and feeling somewhat bleh about that move. Bernerd talked about auto-pilot the other day, and my lack of will in the mornings to wake for something like church is disappointing. In a way, it's not that bad considering that I probably really needed the rest, but I know, I could sleep earlier on weeknights, etc etc etc.

But no, there are too many things in my life that are too important to me. And my church doesn't seem to happen on Sunday mornings as much as it happens over lunch on weekdays, in swimming pools and over ice cream on saturday nights. As I said before, I've always been mildly resentful toward God for depriving me of a 'normal' church situation, which I recognise entails making it for yourself.

But I'm not,
and I can't be,
and this isn't me.

It would do be a great disservice to everyone and anyone to lie and to live a lie, so I refuse to take the easy way out and assimilate myself. I don't think God has dragged me through shitty church circumstances for me to just abdicate on what I believe in and mindlessly dissolve. Here I am, I believe in something passionately, I am convicted of a truth revealed in my life (and I think that this is more then what I can say for most others).

So I'm with you, the dispossessed, the ones who are the troublers of israel, who stand and stare and give up on the compromise. Who want to seek the inward truth. And with those who sit alone on sunday mornings, kicking themselves for not fulfilling their churchly obligations, and who would punch themselves if they did.

Seriously, how can anyone blame them?

Humble as a mumble in the jungle
of shouts and screams
That's the way the cracker crumbles
So I guess I've gotta re-route my dreams
Y'all can't harm me, it's over

[Humble Mumble ~ Outkast]

[Edit: 1519 hrs]

Alright so i did eventually end up having church today.
It was over the internet, with Erwin and Curtis,

Dear God
We are your people and mostly we don't mind,
except that you do not fit any of our categories.
We keep pushing, and pulling, and twisting, and turning,
trying to make you fit the God we would rather have,
and every time we distort you that way we end up with an idol more congenial to us.
In our more honest moments of grief and pain we are very glad that you are who you are, and that you are toward us in all your freedom what you have been toward us.
So be your faithful self, and by your very engagement in the suffering of the world, transform the world even as you are being changed. We pray in the name of Jesus, who is the sign of your suffering love,
Amen.

And somehwere, a threefold Amen.

[Edit : 1756 hrs]

I can't stay pissy for the rest of my life. I've got to start somewhere.
But for now, thank God for grace.

I made a lot of mistakes
I made a lot of mistakes
I made a lot of mistakes
I made a lot of mistakes

If I was crying in the van with my friend
It was for freedom from myself and from the land.

Sufjan, you understand me.

I suddenly realise what they mean when they say that 'you cannot have your cake and eat it'. I want things in my life that are diametrically opposed, and I stand in the middle, arms wildly outstretched toward both corners.

Just Flow.

I'm exhausted.
I spend my time the best way I know how, but between society and me, there are priority clashes.

And as I've shared with Belmont and Erwin, I'm scared of becoming like 'them'.
eewck.

I'm exhausted.

I think I know why God has never given me the gift of music. I have no courage to nurture it into being, and no strength to bare my soul to the world in this way. Music, perhaps is the highest gift.

Hello Mr Zebra.

I roll the window down, and then begin to breathe in the darkest country road and the strong scent of evergreen from the passenger seat as you are driving me home. Then looking upwards I strain my eyes and try to tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites from the passenger seat as you are driving me home. "Do they collide?" I ask and you smile. With my feet on the dash the world doesn't matter. When you feel embarrassed then i'll be your pride, when you need directions then i'll be the guide for all time.

For all time.
[Passenger seat ~ Death Cab for cutie]

I love car rides, in the backseat, where you cease to exist, lost within yourself.
And in the passenger seat up front, where you share a journey.

I think we've forgotten how essential journeys are to life. In our midst to get somewhere, quicker, faster and better, we fail to consider the moments shared behind the dashboard. Here is where I talk to my mother, and pour out my heart and mind. There is where I share comfortable silences with Belmont, after a hectic day with Boey. And then was when I laughed with Tom, on our way to the Taiwan beef noodle place at 70th and Granville, or to coffee at Kerrisdale, or just to Pho on 10th. And also on cookie runs with Curtis, under the northern stars filtering though the leaves in Pacific Spirit park. And sometimes with Andre, burning rubber in the back streets of vancouver. And finally, with Mel, from burnaby and back, talking about life and life, and from Safeway to 4822 when he let me drive.

I think we forget that life isn't just being there, it's getting there. And while you're at it, love and be as much as possible. It makes 'there' an easier place to exist in when you've got good company. In fact, I think the point of getting 'there' is to enjoy the company of those who have travelled with you.

Please, make car rides longer, let's take buses, ferries, planes. Let's just keep going. And even though we're always moving, let's remember to keep home.

I need you so much closer, so come on.

[Transatlanticism ~ Death Cab for Cutie]

Dear God, remember our second honeymoon? I was listening to our song again today and it hit me that you were more real in my past then I realised. And though I fear straying while questing for truth and genuinty, I really don't have to.

Take me up in arms with you, and I'll wrestle for more then a name.
I'm not copping out.

I heard my grandmother's story for the first time today. More like, my mother heard her story for the first time today, and translated the recording for me seven hours later. My dad didn't want to sit around to listen, it made him angry. My mother sees the hand of God working behind all this. My heart remained heavy. How am i going to see myself through this alive?

难怪外公一听到我的意向就怒气喷喷的吗我：“历史！历史是肮脏的！你读你们自己的历史吧，不要读我们的！”

他妈的。。。how?

Anyway, Gladys is on-line again making my world temporarily complete. She points out the obvious in my life, that which I cannot name and calls it into the light. Because it's hers too.

"don't fall in too deep and then pull out again!" ~ her.

Like purple is to a girl such as myself, like the settling of summer into the base of my abdomen as the muscles twist to expel and receive. I sink as if after a weary search for something, sink into term-break slumber, to the pre-afterglow that means, and is the conception of, something more. A weight is lifted, and another swiftly seeps in to steal the hollow moment that leaves me shivering. A cycle starts spinning, in harmony with the other orbs that spread life. It is golden, light that is golden, sweet and deep as a baby's first feed. It is the moment when yearning stops, and continues on a divine plane. When everything you work for and look to is dissolved and gloriously expanded into a single smile.

If you could only see,
What love has made of me,
Then I'd no longer be in your mind,
The difficult kind,
Becuase babe, I've changed.

Now if you would only see,
What love could make of me
Then we'd no longer be in your mind
The difficult kind,
Becuase babe, I'll change.

I am trying to find loves that will last a lifetime.
And despite today's sermon being of no value 99% of the time, I nonetheless came away with that 1%.

Do not expect anything.

But learn to give. If I expect perfection, I am in reality not looking for a relationship, but for comfort. I will end up a slave to my own desires.

So I will retract the molds, and let your broken beauty take me away.

Even when leading a perfect life, you sometimes make wrong choices, then you will bite your tougue, and bleed through clenched teeth:

THIS IS NOT MY IDEA OF A GOOD TIME

But do not be fooled into believing that perfection is static. It is dynamic, and here I am, swirling in a less-then-satisfactory moment that even yet constitutes perfection. Perfection, can be a choice.

--------------------------------------------

I related to Shiyu today a quote by a Chinese pop star that I had read in the life! section of the papers some time back. It went something along the lines of this:

Beauty in a girl is not in how she looks, it's a quality.
Beauty is found in her need to be taken care of.

No prizes for guessing my reaction toward that. It's no secret that I abhor the thought of needing to be taken cared of by my significant other, complete with the pampering and cooing. It just ain't for me, sweet pea.


But 2 mood swings later, my strength is tempered.
Please don't let it be said that I need no taking care of, I need to be taken care of in a way that makes it possible for me to take care of myself.

ack.

Some people dig themselves into relationships that are detrimental and a waste of time. All for the sake of being validated.

I definitely don't need to do that. I just walk down the street, and laugh.
And the world laughs with me.

But becuase of that, I am afriad, some on the sidewalk call me magic.