How many ways can you say “eruption”? April 20, 2010

There are six synonyms in the Icelandic volcano name – I checked. No wonder we are all hesitant to actually name the tyrannous crater.

This morning I read that some European airlines are opening up operations once again, after a five-day backlog. And in the same article, I was struck by all the alternative names we’ve given for this problematic cloud.

While it’s still too soon to start nick-naming the natural phenomenon like we did for the Rockies, Katrina, and Kili we find ways to describe it instead. Now how many ways can we say volcano eruption without sounding redundant ..

How about ash belching offending volcano?

A weather ‘jinx’?

A freak high-pressure bubble stalling over the mid-Atlantic?

The ash plume held responsible?

Try putting it into your everyday phrase: “My flight got delayed because of an ash plume. I’m sorry I missed the wedding – it was the weather jinx. We are stuck on vacation in Italy and won’t be back until this offending volcano clears up.”

Good grief!

Friday-signing-out Playlist April 16, 2010

Started by what Rich Terfry was playing on my drive home from work (by the way, it took three Google searches to try and find the correct spelling for his name.)

We are the Same, The Tragically Hip

Wheels, Jamie Cullum

Twilight Galaxy, Metric

Gold Guns Girls, Metric

Giving up the Gun, Vampire Weekend

Downhill, Moby

Maybe the list is in anticipation of this weekend’s Junos? (That might be the CBC speaking through me.) I haven’t looked forward to a music awards since Teen Choice in grade six. That was around the same time I tuned into YTV’s Hit List every Saturday afternoon. No shame, even now.

No, I don’t think that this playlist is in anticipation of anything. It just .. is. Much like the coming-off sense when Friday cusps towards the bend of the weekend. It’s what we’re moving out from.

Mutt-le through Monday April 12, 2010

Okay, maybe not the most original of jokes. But the quacking is certainly timely in this week’s return of warmer temps. If a salt-and-pepper pair of mutts can’t make you smile, the spring weather is sure to catch up to you – happy Monday.

Troubadour April 6, 2010

My word of the day, courtesy of Sara Groves.

Her song, “He’s Always Been Faithful” has been streaming through my veins the past little while, and while searching for the song, I came across her Twitter where she describes herself as a troubadour.

What a lovely and nostalgic way to talk about a poet / songstress without being all Lilith Fair about it. Wait .. was that just an oxymoron in denial?

Check out this video from Sara Groves’ newest album.

Easter Monday April 4, 2010

The Torontoist posted a retrospective on how Easter was celebrated one hundred years ago. While it may be patronizing to refer to the articles as “antique” and therefore very cool in its kitschy-preserved way (five-cents a paper! derby hats! ), I love the serif type and illustrations.

Hmm, also came across Walter Kirn’s piece in the New Yorker Magazine. He writes about faith and fact and the way we live today:

I take Easter as a fact now. And Passover too, for the people who observe it. I’ve decided that faith is what some facts are made of and that the true meaning of Easter isn’t just the escape from sin and death but, in part, the escape from thought itself, one of humanity’s direst oppressors and, perhaps, the hardest to shake off. This year, when so many more solid-seeming facts have proved to be not entirely satisfying (see the stimulant effects of increased government spending and lowered interest rates), I’ve decided to celebrate into existence 12 months of optimism and abundance, for America and the whole world. Why not? In economics, it has long been recognized that markets are driven not only by rationality, nor even chiefly by rationality, but also by a non-thought-related energy known to the experts as “animal spirits.” Well, I’m raising my animal spirits. I’m raising them high, like a sacred cup of wine.

Optimism in our time. Maybe. Faith being fact for the celebrants. True, truth is truest to those who hold belief.

But it sounds very relativist and humanistic. If Christ came to save, it was (and is) not just for “Christians”, but for everyone who chooses to repent and receive. Afterall, we were were all unbelievers before believing in Christ. And the optimism part .. don’t you want something bigger than what this world has to offer to bank your joy upon? That’s what is irresistible to me about Jesus – my joy is not complete, and cannot be contained here on earth. But since I belong to him, what the earth has for me, for you, for tomorrow, isn’t what really counts in the end.

In the end. That’s a big thought. Today is Easter Monday. One day. But even for one day, Christ has made it. Today we remember Life at its truest. And it is good.

Dissection of happiness April 1, 2010

The sight of kids at a distance who are marked more-so by the long tail of a kite that hangs in the sky – though more horizontally than upright – and they concert a great effort to keeping it up.

And it is perhaps the warmest weekend in the year so far.

So then you, like everyone else in your neighbourhood, decide to take a walk and are smiling congenially to those passing by and making emotional connections over their dog that runs up to you, the stranger, and the owner is not bothered by this. Instead, a conversation strikes up.

And no one really spoke to one another otherwise in this suburb.

Then on your way home you notice a posting on the mailbox that is hand-drawn by a kid who wants to walk your dog for $5 (the figure embellished with a curly bubble), as long as there is a leash provided and service is requested between 4:30pm (after school) and 9:30pm (before bed). It makes you go, “awww“, so you take a picture of it so that you can show your friends and elicit the same response by them.

Speaking of which, you remember with great anticipation that you will get to see those friends. Be it in a park with a frisbee whizzing between you, a church where some are being dipped into the baptism pool on Easter Sunday, or in a jazz club because that’s where the two of you said you wanted to go last time.

This is my afternoon snippet of happiness.

I’ve decided that it’s much easier to be happy when you don’t think as much. When you just let yourself stay long enough in a moment to realize what’s around you. Because being happy, experiencing delight, enjoying something to the point of pleasure, makes use of your heart than your head.

I’ve been thinking. That it’s good to take off the thinking hat and work on my felt heart once in a while. Does that make me less smart? Well, sort of. Because happiness has little to do with knowing. And enjoying the moment. Reacting and relishing instead of burrowing the situation to the farthest depths of rationality. But then does that make me a naive smiling fool? Can I take smiling, but not fool?

The disadvantage of being analytical is that a lot is weighed on your judgement. And sometimes it’s better to give people the benefit of the doubt – I think happy people are good at doing that. But if your brain is making vectors all over the room, how is anyone else supposed to feel comfortable dodging between the shot-arrows of your thoughts? Even if they don’t hear you out loud, there’s little room in your head for other people to move around.

Being happy also makes you vulnerable – to looking like a fool, or getting excited about something that turned out to be nothing at all! So .. being happy puts you at risk for losing something. But maybe it is worth the loss. Just so that you have the pleasure of saying it was worth it.

The necessary networking April 1, 2010

So after three stints with magazine internships, I think I am comfortable enough to seriously start freelancing.

I have a to-do list. It helps to spread out the tasks so that I don’t feel overwhelmed by what I’ve yet to do .. and what they have yet to accomplish. For example, contacting the general manager from my most recent internship – the Dii-Lo Big Boss. To be fair, a senior editor made the connection for me (her I am comfortable talking with – she used to be my instructor) so all I have to do is request a time and date to have this meeting.

The contacting people part is the hardest. I hate “networking” – whatever that means.

What am I going to say?

What do I want to find out?

Why am I requesting their time?

It is very possible that I know some of the right bridges to navigate, but have never actually set foot on them. In navigating the workworld (I don’t even know if people use that term anymore), I’ve been very good at making excellent lists but too afraid to start on the first items.

It’s not that I am lazy. It just that I’m a little .. people-scared. Especially towards those that I feel have so much more than I do. The nearly knee-jerk reaction I get is, “Val, don’t put your worth in your work. You don’t need to compare yourself to others.” Which is true. I just have to really believe it. Habitual thinking says a lot about what you really believe. Not that it’s set in stone – it just indicates what thoughts are behind your actions.

But I digress. Networking. I once asked my freelance instructor how writers are supposed to deal with their introversion. Needing to talk to people, be persistent about getting facts verified, probe areas they might want to leave unturned.

“It’s just something you have to do,” he said to me. “And what’s the worst thing that can happen? They’ll say no, and you’ll have to go another way to get what you’re looking for. Most of the thing people are pretty nice and flattered that you take an interest in their life.”

In the meantime, two things underlay all my to-do lists like a palimpsest: pray and trust. I know Whose I belong to. Now why do I have to fear?

~

Please pray:

• That I do what I have to do. No more waiting around when I just have to go forward. But at the same time, that I may be wise and not rash with my decisions.
• Thanksgiving to the Lord for my three internships past. They were all learning experiences – even if it showed me what I do not want to be doing.

Thinking aloud: What we expect about faith March 18, 2010

I’ve been thinking a lot about two of my friends. Having grown up in the church, they’re at a point where they’re evaluating Christianity, and questioning what having faith in Jesus means for them. Their thoughts and fears remind me of the ones I struggled with, and prompt me to go back and look at them again. I’ve been reading and praying about these fears and doubts, so I’m just thinking aloud here about why we might experience disappointment with God.

I also grew up in the church. The funny thing about growing up in the same church is that you adopt the theology of the majority .. I’m not a theologian by any means, but what I do know is that the things I think about Jesus, what I believe about who God is, really affects what I expect from Him. So, I grew up thinking that if I serve God, that is a good act of worship. If I read my Bible and pray everyday, I will grow spiritually. But where things got fuddled was what I understood faith to be. And overtime, what I expected faith to look like didn’t match up with what my experience of faith was.

Philip Yancy* wrote something interesting about atheists. He said that because they don’t believe in God, they neither expect or receive anything from Him. Christians, I believe, are the total opposite. We have so much invested in God – we bank so much of our attention, energy, time, even money in this God that it would seem unfair for Him to ignore us. In this way, our trust in God – that He would at least look our way because we’ve followed Him – makes ourselves vulnerable to Him. We don’t want to be left hanging on the other end of an empty faith. Or to de-mystify this idea, we don’t want to be left hanging in a relationship. I think that whenever we are vulnerable with anyone, we risk being hurt or disappointed.

Then, who is God that we can trust Him? And what can we expect from God? What do we want from God? Jesus asked a similar question to a blind man who came up to Him.

Pause right there .. Jesus asked us what we want from Him? Before I would have thought that Q&A to be irreverant, demanding. How can you ask the Son of God for something? (And maybe that indicates how I view God. Can I really approach Him as I am?) But nonetheless, if Christianity is about a relationship with God, I think it’s okay that both parties understand each others’ expectations. I really think that you can have a conversation about what you can both expect without being demanding or disrespectful.

So now I’m thinking (and maybe can throw this your way too): What do we want when we come to Jesus? What do we expect of our faith relationship with Him?

—

*My pastor friend once called Philip Yancy pop-culture of Christianity. I was a bit offended when he said this, but I think what my pastor was saying was that Christians should rely on the Bible as their main textbook, if you will. I can see and agree what my pastor means for this – that it’d dangerous to build a faith second-hand instead of first-hand via the Holy Spirit and the Bible. But I’ve also come to see that sometimes we need some perspective or guidance in the seasons of our faith. For me, it’s hard to only read the Bible as I grow and mature as a Christian.

While Yancy is editor-at-large for Christianity Today, and has written “candid” books about faith in Jesus, I think he helps us be honest about our personal struggles in a world faith like Christianity.

March Break Good! March 16, 2010

At quarter to five, I’ve decided to walk to campus after my internship since it is such a splendid day outside. Sitting by Dundas and University in a sunny spot just on the edge of Chinatown, I eat my bagel, eyeing the pigeons that have gathered. Looking up from my book, the flighty flock has gotten bigger, but it’s not me dropping bread crumbs – three small Asian kids are waving things at them and, thankfully, one of them chases the birds away (bad experience feeding big birds – remind me to tell you the story).

Now the kids have run to their mom, who is sitting on the other side with a stroller, and they’re taking silly pictures together. I try to get back to my book – what is Piper saying about future grace again? – but then get distracted by the sights of the street. It’s Tuesday of March Break, and there are girls in pink tights walking with their parents, who are each toting a backpack and holding juiceboxes.

I give up on the reading and watch people passing by.

And then my heart swells up in thanks – thanks to the Lord for a beautiful day, for the promise that spring hints to us Canadians dug out in three months of snow, for a bagel and a sunny spot to sit and watch the world in. Then the enjoyment of the whole thing got me thinking ..

Sometimes I forget that the Lord is good. I mean, yes He’s awesome, but He’s also very good to us. Before, I thought I was undeserving of His goodness, period. But if I stop at my unworthiness of His goodness, how am I supposed to receive His gifts of forgiveness and blessing? What if God wants to bless me? For so long I thought of the “right” Christian life as one of strife and struggle – calling the Lord the God of Jacob – the God who sustains someone in suffering. But what if God’s lot for me is not to live a life of sadness, but one of joy? So that I can now call Him the Lord of Abraham – the God who gives us good inheritance and manifold blessing? And yet those are also promises that we can claim as Christians, non?

This is the place where my heart is at. In realizing that maybe the secret Mary had that Martha lacked was being able to enjoy Jesus. Martha knew how to serve the Lord; but Mary knew how to be loved by the Lord.

Mary could enjoy her March Break, like these kids at play.

And if the Father wants to give us a joyful March Break, isn’t it right to receive a good thing? I think the reason why it was so hard for me to receive a good thing (from anyone, really) was because I was used to doing the right thing in order to merit a favourable outcome. Growing up Asian, obedience isn’t all that hard for me – in fact, reaping what you sow is pretty logical.

But if I only live by obedience, it’s kind of like insisting that grace doesn’t exist.* In learning to enjoy good things from the Lord, it’s actually been very freeing. Free to be a child of God who can expect nothing but the best from His hand. Because I can trust His goodness. And the best thing about this freedom is that there is no need to worry, because in his sovereignty, the Lord really does care of His children.

Freedom and trust. Funny relationship of love, eh?

—

*Not to say that one should live in total freedom and zero obedience. Or in straightjackets and be restricted to little freedom of movement. Call it a balance that I’m learning.

Lunch stroll in the double digits March 8, 2010

There are many things that I like about my new magazine internship. But to be peripheral about it, I’m going to tell you about my lunch excursions.

The office is located just outside Osgoode station, a little west on Queen Street, and happenstance has it that I have an amazing window view just on top of the garage – so I can see when people are out and about at lunch. Like today, when I wanted to join them outside.

Last week on my walk I discovered that the OCAD building is just behind us, so I got to check out the cool angles that make up this, um, eye-catching edifice.

Today I wanted to walk farther on Queen Street. But much like the day I wandered onto McCaul because I saw the edge of the OCAD from Queen, I turned into north corner of John and Queen. Mostly because there were people walking out from that street with ice-creams in their hand.

Better than ice-cream (or maybe equivilant to. Depends on the day.) was the Umbra concept store. Two floors of perusing. I better keep an eye on my watch because time might slip faster away faster here. There were these cool hanging shelves for books, music and even a funky magazine rack that I coveted. Covet. Last time I thought about installing hanging shelves in my room, I realized too late at Ikea that I should double check the type of wall I’ve got to hang the shelves on. Hmm.. thank you Canadian Home Workshop for the shelving advice.

While I made a mental note to myself about the shelves, I wandered over to their art book display and made another note (in writing this time) to check out “Books Do Furnish a Room” by Leslie Geddes-Brown. Oh, if I had a house to furnish …

So did you buy anything in the end, you thrifty wanderer?

Yes. A colouring book published by Prestel that takes you through the masters – Klint for my young-budding-artist of a cousin and van Gogh for myself. Twenty bucks. Nice.

It was a little depressing to come back inside. But, what ho! the last great discovery on this lunch break was .. the latch on the window that swings outside into that glorious day.