A ride

Since when do I ride a bike? When it's important, because this time it is. I'm pushing really hard, but it doesn't feel like I'm getting anywhere faster. My muscles ache, more and more, and more as we fly by cedar shingles and the curtained windows. What if I was going in the wrong direction. All this extra effort I'm putting in would only serve to create more work for when I would have to turn around.

That's what she's doing. Going in the wrong direction. I've been there before, with the water, and the fire, and the promises that don't make sense. I've got the photos under my arm, because she can't argue with them. She can argue with me but not with them. How can't you see the love in that smile? I was there.

A deep breath relieves the pressure on the lungs, and I miss the smell of patchouli.




"I have to show you something."

Hope in dress

As the number flip by, higher and higher, hope seems to have been drown out by the corporate slogan. Petro-can. But there's some hope; sixty inches of hope in a white and green summer dress. Steps down from her ram 3500, she couldn't be bothered by the disparity that drains me while I desperately attempt to hide it and replace it with the same sun that beams from her smile.

The dream that she lives take me away. Somehow, she becomes innocent as she puts on that summer dress, as if the world could never mar her with the whips we know.

She fumbles with the cap as I walk toward her.

“I didn't think that could be your truck.”

I had to protect my eyes from the shining of the stars that stared straight back at me. Not even waning moons know to smile like that. The cap clicks as it rests in place.



“Enjoy the beautiful day.”

My neck feels cramped

While hitching home to our humble abode in Black Creek the other night, I found myself on a remote road that connects the inland highway to the old island highway down here (Hamm Rd). It's almost nine now, and it's already quite dark. Probably half an hour from anything remotely resembling a large city; this kind of darkness is so thick that I can see the light pollution of Courtenay from a large enough clearing of trees.

After almost an hour of walking and driving now, and I'm tempted to start feeling sorry for myself until I realize I have been blessed more tonight than any for a long time. I finally look up to see more stars than I can ever remember seeing, and a big streak of stars so thick that it could only be the milky way flying from one skyline to the other! I was so captivated that I can't even really remember how long I walked before Trevor came and picked me up later on that night.

I really don't feel like ranting about how we ignore the beauty of nature, or how we need to praise God for his majesty in the things like this (granted those are both true) but something else that captured me that night. I felt nourished while my neck was bent backwards for what seemed like hours. The beauty that I got to behold seemed to fill something. It's like God made beauty for me to make me feel closer to him, or maybe to just let me experience it because he knows that's what our souls long for. I can't say it in any other way than that I felt like I was being sustained, nurtured, venerated...

New Pilgrimage

Well, this new season of pilgrimage has led me to some interesting places lately. I've been considering the message of the Gospel a little in the last while, and it seems awfully too relational to ignore. The more I consider it as such, the less I can justify an angry disposition no matter the circumstance and the more I try to respond with love; whether it be a loud and obnoxious co-worker, or a muchly missed girl who I wish I could be with.

Along with this new season I have moved to the mountain. I seem to be spending most of my time with the un-churched. Now in some ways this can seem fruitless when your not waiving around a bible and checking off names on a list of converts, but I was recently encouraged by a random comment from Glenn, one of our bartenders.

"Graham, what is the key to happiness?"

"Well, I think it has to do with being content with what you have."

"Yeah."

"Umm, was there some sort of specific answer you were looking for?"

"Not really, you just seem like a happy person."

I'm not really sure if this means as much to all of you as it does to me, but that kind of surprised me. I think Glenn agreed with my point, but there was something in his demeanour that said much more. I think that he found a truth in me that we were able to come together over. These seem to be the truths that I think Jesus was concerned about. These relational truths seemed very important to him throughout the Gospel.

This is where my words fail me because I'm not really sure how to describe these relational truths. Maybe they are those words that people hear in our smiles, the truths people feel in our voice, the things people know from our embrace. Truth has never needed us to stand up and fight for it; in fact I'm sure He is more than equipped to defend himself. I want to introduce people to the person of truth in me and let that bring us together regardless of our religious background.

Mountain man Del

Hey guys, I've delayed in announcing this via the bloggin community but I'm moving up to Mt Washington for the winter season to work up there. I'll be learning to snowboard and doing it a lot probably, so if any of you are gonna be coming up and either want someone to come along or a place to crash (or both) I'm sure I'm your man. If you don't already know my number, there's probably a good reason for that so you have to find that out yourself... creeper.

Community matters

Since the diagnosis of the cancerous tumour we all knew it was coming. My Grandmother passed away on the 28th of October and the funeral was held on All Saints day, Nov 1st.

I'd imagine that you start to see the world in perspective when the end is in sight, and I believe that was true for my Grandma during these last few months. Sometimes I felt bad that it took a lump of cancerous cells on her ovaries to motivate me to go see her more often, but it didn't feel like placing blame was going to help, so I delicately laid my guilt to rest so we could concern ourselves with what really mattered. From my visits, it was clear what really mattered to my Grandma.

Recently I have been in a kind of church limbo. Regularly attending different churches but not calling any of them my own. I never thought of my Grandma as a particularly spiritual person, but it seems she knew the value of church community. Of all the things we talked about, the one thing that she never failed to ask was whether I had found a new church yet. I'm not sure whether or not she would have been so persistent in different circumstances, but if there was anything she wanted to have told me, she couldn't have been more clear than this. She knew the value of belonging to a church community, and desperately wanted me to understand that as well.

The last thoughts of my dying Grandmother for me were fixed resolutely on community in Christ. The least I could do is fix my thoughts likewise... any thoughts?

Eileen Hicks, 1918 - 2006

tale of the slightly absentee blogger...

I'm not really sure if there are many people who check my blog all that often waiting for a new post, but recently I've had a few paradigm shifts that have slowed my blogging habit to a crawl.

It's hard to balance a bike if you're not moving. In fact it's easy to say "they lean too much left" and then they will say "they only say that because they lean too much right" and so the story goes. But the beautiful thing about a bike is that when you start moving, centripetal forces seem to help you balance in a seemingly effortless manner. To me, this balancing act of liberal/conservative, post-modern/modern, left/right, chocolate vanilla... I'm not going to say that it hasn't been fun, but it doesn't always get us further. It's not that I'm abandoning my ways of mind melding thinking binges that I've come to love and enjoy, but it's that I want to try and compensate for my natural tendencies to... well, think life to death.

So I guess maybe I've been a little short of "deep thoughts" (for lack of a better term) but I'll be back as soon as I find that natural state of balance on this bike of life (lol, that made me laugh out loud). Hahaha...

If Grace is true: Why God will save every person

I heard about a book recently, and it grabbed my attention because it had a very interesting title: "If Grace is true: Why God will save every person." And at first I got a little angry because I felt like, if that were true, then what are we even doing here? I mean as Christians. If everyone gets to heaven, then what's the point? But to be honest, I gradually became even more disgusted with my own reaction than the title of the book...

How long have I reduced God's salvation for us to a free ride ticket to heaven? What was Jesus coming to save us from? What if he came to save how we love one another, or how we see ourselves, or how we love God? Didn't he come so that we might have life and to the fullest? Maybe he came to save us from that feeling of meaningless meandering about this earth. This is why I love Phillipians 2:12 so much now, salvation isn't some cataclysmic event that happens in one moment then is over, in fact the typical "conversion" is really just an introduction to the process of salvation. We are to continually work out our salvation!

So what does this make evangelism look like? What if we weren't simply trying to "save them from the fires of hell" but rather "helping them to unlock real life"? Maybe we need to change how we think of salvation.

This is hot

Hey everyone. This is just me saying that the hottest thing since the Great potato rebellion of 1266 has just started his own blog. Well... he's been blogging for a while but no one reads myspace blogs haha. Check him out!

On the pier

There are always certain truths that I believe we will have to be constantly reminded of throughout our life, and I think I might have just been reminded again of one of those.

One handsomely dark evening, I found myself chatting with a friend on the pier about my thoughts, and about the beauty of community in spite of stark differences that seem to face us as Christians in the body. Although I rarely am able to see the error in my ways, I try to be open to the reality of my constant imperfection; and what I came to conclude had nothing to do with our dialogue directly but was so beautifully represented accidentally through that dialogue. As I listened to myself, I started to hear a hollow sounding voice that didn't resound the Truth that I was so dearly seeking after.

I'm not saying that I was wrong about everything I was saying, but I didn't feel any life in it anymore. Something that used to be a passionate throbbing in my heart for these ideas (and some might call ideals) had turned into nothing more than the very empty and heartless logic I was trying to fight.

Have I been ignoring the fellowship with his Spirit in favour of arguing my good ideas? Have I been neglecting the true nature of community with Jesus and His church in favour of arguing about it? Don't we all sometimes?

Fundy vs Pomo... next on UFC!!!

Over the last few months, I've been brought to question my behaviour several times in the light of seeming somewhat heretical to some. Are they just getting over zealous with their fundamentalist weapons of mass judgment? or am I throwing my call to holiness to the wind in favor of some postmodern idealistic sentiments? And contrary to popular belief, this isn't something that I pretend to have completely figured out yet.

In typical Reid fashion though, I will call to a quote I read recently that sheds some light to my internal conflict.

While the holiness movement has put a great emphasis on the Christian’s need to live an righteous life—a life worthy of the calling they have received--I think perhaps we need to remind ourselves that our only true righteousness comes from Christ. If we’re really serious about doing the things Jesus did, then maybe we need to focus more on the incarnation, and less on its imitation.

- Spencer Burke

Two words stick out to me here, and those are imitation and incarnation. How often do we simply try to imitate Christ by acting out holiness in our actions? How different is that from what the Pharisees did? They did everything right and then felt challenged when the possibility arose that there was more to it than being "right." Do you act like the Pharisees did when you are confronted with someone who acts according to a different set of standards than you? Is imitation of Christ or the incarnation of Christ our end goal?

Farewell

I'm officially stepping down from the leadership team of the Sidney Pentecostal youth group. It was an amazing eight years. I will also be finding a new church in Gordon Head were I can grow into community with the people I'm living with. The reasons are mostly personal but that's not to say that I won't tell you, but you'll just have to ask me yourself in person sometime. Maybe over coffee. The internet is just too impersonal for some things.

ps. I like it when people buy me coffees.

my Gut says "Hells yeah!"

I love when for some reason my soul leaps for joy, but my mind can't find the words to describe it, or even better understand it. And this is the sensation that I get when I think about the three guys I'm going to be living with for the next portion of my life. Ben Badke, Cameron Courtney, and Trevor Robinson (in alphabetical order of course.)

At least I don't think I'm under the influence of their poetically lustful good looks... (because I can assure you they are all extremely beautiful young men) but there's something more. It's like we don't need to prove to each other what we are anymore. They don't let the things I do, define who I am. If I screw up, the first thing on their mind is what they can do to help, and the last thing on their mind is passing judgment. What do we gain from judging each other anyways? So why bother. We get judged enough from our jobs, our schools, our churches... Let's make some room for love. That's the community I'm excited to be a part of.

Roommates kick butt.

Personalized truth, or Personal truth

When people have bombarded me for years with this idea that truth is a concrete unchangeable concept, and my post modern edge wants to think it’s different for everyone, I’ve been unable to reconcile these two opposing factions in my mind. It always seemed like one had to be right and the other had to be wrong. I’m not so convinced anymore.

Truth is not personalized to us, it doesn’t try to make us happy or be what we want it to be. But truth is personal.

As I was thinking about truth, and what Jesus meant when He said “I am the way and the truth and the life.” So Jesus is truth. Truth is personal. Truth is personal to each person it meets because Jesus knows that no one person is the same. Jesus was always the same person on earth, but he acted and treated different people differently. Truth never changes, but is always personal to every single person on earth.

So maybe when two people argue about truth, maybe they are really arguing about how they know the person of Jesus. Maybe they had different encounters with the same person? Maybe we need to approach truth as a person with a personality, not a bunch of rules written in stone.

So who's going to watch you die?

" 'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes round and everyone will lift their heads
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said...

that "Love is watching someone die"


So who's going to watch you die?.. "

, What Sarah Said - Death Cab for Cutie

I had heard this song a dozen times before it clicked... and once it did I was blown away by my Father once again. How many ways can love be portrayed in such a powerful way as this. When I see love, I see the woman crying at Jesus feet because she can't find any other way to express this furious love for Him. Sarah sees someone holding a loved one's hand during their last minutes. Love is such an amazing thing that can be expressed in so many different ways, and I think I'm guilty of trying to equate it to numbers and formulas when I should really just spend some time in awe of it.

God created love so we could experience Him. Just as much as He created the mountains so we could see His majesty, He created this experience of love so that we could know Him deeper through it. I want to know love. Spend some time in awe of this thing of love. What do you see?

Back

I am now back from camp, and I can say that I'm glad I'm home.

I have learned so many things already, but I feel like I'm seeing two things and don't understand how they fit together yet. One thing that God has shown me is that we only need to please Him. We can't seek after the approval of anyone else but our heavenly Father. But there's this other part of me that seems to yell even louder that I need the attention of people. Not everyone, but sometimes certain someones. There's nothing that could convince me that this desire isn't real in me.

So on one side, I feel like I'm drowning in the burning awareness that we were created to be in community with others, and I cannot quell this desire to be a part of that. Yet this needy sort of thing seems to contradict the fact that I need to seek after God's approval and no longer the approval of man. It just doesn't seem to completely vibe with me... how about you

What is real anyways?

I was having a conversation with an old friend about life and where we've come from and where we're both headed, and at some point in the conversation, the term "real" started being thrown around. Now this is something that I am guilty of quite often. You know those people, they are just very real... but in trying to explain this to someone else, I realized that I'm not even so sure of what I'm talking about.

So is being real just always being honest and not being a fake? Or does real have more to do with being in tune with God's rhythm of life, living life how it was meant to be lived? I've been throwing this word in front of all sorts of other things to make it some sort of better. I could probably explain to you what I usually mean when I say real in reference to someone else, but when I kept describing my own life experiences and my efforts of just trying to be real... I fell short.

Help me out here.

Back from the City & Colour

We've been passing through the mountains now for about four hours when a conversation erupts. The backseat is talking of past flames of all sorts, with a kind of casual familiarity; as if we should all be familiar with it. I don't intrude as to not seem like a tourist in the car, but it makes me painfully aware of myself for a little while. I've never been that kind of person, you know, the kind of person who has endless tales of silly relationships or people that were especially fond of me that I had to "let down easy" you know. And that's always been a popular topic to bring about self awareness in my case; I’m just not really the biggest ladies man I guess you could say. I start wondering about why I might not have had all these people wandering through my memories to add to the conversation.

This is the part where I put down my pious mantle of awesomeness to admit that I'm not perfect. Have you ever started to become very aware of your brokenness? Like you’re not put together right and the way that feels natural really isn't the right way. I think everyone does from time to time.

This is the silly part of my tale, because I start to think about all the things that I do that people don't like. How could I change myself to create a more suitable person to be on a girls’ arm. As I'm thinking about all this, to further my purposes of adding to this explosion of stories in the backseat, I very quickly realize that I'm heading down a very inwardly focused road. I guess there's nothing wrong with bettering yourself, but it just seemed like I was missing something and my focus needed fixing. So now I'm left with a broken image of what I feel like I'm supposed to be, and for now, I think I'm sort of ok with it.

I feel like I just want to meditate on it is all. Something doesn’t seem right but I don’t know what.

Am I just a machine that wasn't put together properly and needs some repairing? Is it as simple as finding the right pieces and putting them in the right places and I'll be a "good" person? But for some reason that doesn't seem like it'd be good enough...

Reality has a well known liberal bias

Sometimes I look back at how I was. Sometimes it seems like I did less "bad stuff" than I do now, or whatever you right wing politicians want to call it. But follow my meandering thought process as I consider a few things...

I saw a kid at the intersection of Saanich and Blanshard the other day, and he had a sign that showed a burger and fries. I could have argued for days on how he could just as easily go and spend any money i give him on drugs or alcohol. Or maybe how he should just go get a job like everyone else. I would have never had a problem driving right on by him and would never have even felt a hint of empathy, but just the other day I found myself considering how I would be feeling if I had nothing. What if I was forced to such a desperate act of begging on the street and trusting on the generosity of others to fill my stomach.

And this is what I have come to consider... I think I was plagued by a different sort of sin. A kind of sin that the world has taught me to so cleverly cover up. It was the sin of contempt of others. It was the sin of unforgiveness... and the list goes on. They were attitudes that I so deviously convinced myself were justified.

This day though, I was moved to consider how I would hope to be treated if I was in such deplorable state of poverty. I decided to show that I care about him more than the five dollar bill in my pocket. I didn't worry about what he was going to do with it. All I can be expected to do is show to him that I value him as a person and can empathize with his poverty. I can't extend him love with the conditions that he must go purchase a value meal at some fast food joint. We have been given love unconditionally and I should hope that I can give him that as well.

That was wordy and I admire you if you are still reading... but I felt like I really wanted to give an example of the sins that I was ignoring for so long. That's just an example though. And these sins I was brushing under the carpet seem just as plentiful (if not more) than these new ones that I am seeing. But you know what? I feel like I'm living in an arena of sin that I have a chance against. I am becoming more and more aware of my sins and the things that I want to change about myself. I am now convinced that being generous whenever possible is a better way to live. I am convinced that loving a person without any sort of agenda is a better way to love. I feel like when I sin now, I'm no longer fighting blindly but am making leaps and bounds and finding the person I've been created to be.

Does that make sense to anyone?

The Blowers Daughter

I think that the book I'm reading right now is dangerous to the health of my normal life. I jumped into "Through Painted Deserts" the other day while I was hanging around at the West Arm Grill for Cam's last day. I'm less than a third of the way through, and he hasn't really told me anything about anything, but I feel like things just make more sense now than they might have before.

So while I read this book, I'm more and more leaning towards this preference of mine to just live life and stop worrying about what is ok and what is not. Life is not about following rules, life is about living and rules were only meant to make it more comfortable. But the more I let life take me away, I start to see some parts of me that sometimes do things that I not a big fan of. But the interesting part is, I doesn't make me feel like a horrible person. It sort of makes me want to find that part of me I haven't surrendered yet, and give it over to God so that I can continue really and truly living.

Does anyone else ever feel like they've just been being the person they feel they're supposed to be and not the person they feel that they are? I'd hate to avoid the real me in some silly hopes that I will be able to avoid my real problems.