Quote(s) of a couple weeks ago

(Sorry, I've been rather busy of late. I had in mind to post these two quotes from kids at camp when I was there a couple weeks ago, but haven't had time, until this moment)

"I taste like pop!"

- Madeline Bruinooge
after having a pop fight during tuck

"Dear Jesus. Thank you that Dave didn't crap his pants and that it didn't run all over the floor. Amen."

-Brandon

Yup, I'm bored...and a dork

One of my claims to fame is that I can list the kings and queens of England/Britain in chronogical order from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth II, currently with a 100 year gap in the middle (but I'm working on slimming it). And because I don't have anything else to do (that's a lie: don't feel like doing anything productive) I will list them here for your enlightenment (off the top of my head):

William I (the Conqueror)
William II
Henry I
Stephen
Henry II
Richard I
John
Henry III
Edward I (the Longshanks)
Edward II
Edward III
...gap (I do know that there were 3 Henrys, 2 Richards and 2 Edwards, but the order is unknown)...
Henry VII
Henry VIII (and his 6 wives: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr)
Edward VI
(Bloody) Mary I
Elizabeth I
James I
Charles I
Interregnum (12 years of no king, after Charles lost his head)
Charles II
James II
William III (of Orange) & Mary II
Anne
George I
George II
George III
George IV
William IV
Victoria
Edward VII
George V
Edward VIII
George VI
Elizabeth II
(Charles III)
(William V)

If you would also like to memorize the British monarchs, as I'm sure you all are, I have inserted a link to the monarchy's website to the right of this very post (in the sidebar that is).

Reflections at the Midpoint

"Wherever you are, there is vice and wickedness," said Pierre to his wife. (War and Peace, pg. 678)

693 is half of 1386. 1386 is the amount of pages in the book I am currently reading. Page 693 has been passed and I am now therefore past the half way point in this world of a novel. Page 693 also coincides, well almost, with the climax of the book, or at least the climax so far. For some reason I'm like a football coach at halftime, asked by a reporter to assess how the game is going so far and what adjustments I'm going to make for the second half. Well, sort of.
It is going well I should say. It is a world of a novel because Tolstoy literally creates a world (I use the word "literally" in the Vaudrian [see below] sense) which you become a part of whether you are conscious of it or not. But it is not a world like the world of Lord of the Rings with maps and topographical descriptions you can smell as you read, with characters you wish existed. No, the world of War and Peace is a world of people like you and I and as you read their persons come alive in your mind. They come alive in such a way that if the person actually climbed out of the novel and shook your hand, you would immediate recognise them and wonder if you hadn't met them before. They come alive in such a way that when the novel is done, when the reading is done, you feel as if their lives should continue on and that you should someday recall a character and think to yourself, "I wonder what ever happened to that fellow?"
And so I continue on. I try to keep a balance between wanting to finish and wanting to enjoy every step and looking around as I read to take it all in. That's the tricky part about climbing a mountain: to keep one eye on the summit and the other on the ground you're walking on.
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The word "Vaudrian" refers to Dr. Richard W. Vaudry, my history professor at King's. He is widely known for his constant and improper use of the word "literally", to the extent that it has literally lost all meaning whatsoever. A couple quick examples: "When Henry VIII first set eyes on Anne Boleyn, his heart literally melted" or "William Ewart Gladstone literally ruled Parliament with an iron fist".

Shirt and Tie

(If you came here to read the quote of the week and not my self-indulgent mental meanderings, scroll down. It's there...)

I hate making decisions. Today I had to buy a shirt and tie for an upcoming formal occasion. Sounds easy enough, right? Why are there so many colours? And how does the world expect me to know what colour looks good with another? Its too much. When I left my home this morning I did not prepare myself for having to pick one tie out of nine hundred. I don't know. Sure yeah, lets go with that one. Nope, doesn't bring out the right tone. What's tone mean? Beyond me. I think I would have committed an attiral atrocity had I not had a two wise and good looking advisers with me (namely, Shauna and the nice lady at TipTop) to select from the wall o' shirts and the table o' ties two items which look positively smashing. You see, decisions are easier to make when others make them for you and all you have to do is nod your head, "Absolutely, definitely brings out the right tone. And might I also add that the movement in the shirt plays very well with the voice of the jacket."
But then there are some decisions that life demands of you which you just have to make on your own. Those are the ones I hate the most. Because what if you make the wrong one? It makes it even harder when you have to choose between good and good. I've had a couple of those in the past little while. Go with the greater good, right? But define greater good. I just feel like you can list the pros and cons of any decision and make a rational choice based on those and still come out not quite as good as you could have. Because sometimes the best choices we can make are the ones which make such little sense at the time. Sometimes rationality doesn't know what she's talking about. Seems to me that the rational choice is to bury the talent in the ground.
We try as much as we can to follow the Will of God, but how do we know for sure? I've tried praying about things, but then it seems to me that God is not there just so we can go through life and never make a wrong decision. If the goal of living is to grow (according to e. e., that is) and the best way to grow is to make a few bad choices every once in a while then maybe bad choices are the will of God. Perhaps that's when God truly shows up.
And yet we can't go through life making bad decisions willy-nilly just expecting God to be there every time. He gave us brains to figure some of these things out on our own. And gave us community so that we can ask people for wise counsel.
Doesn't make things any easier though!

Quote of the Week

It is one thing to describe an interview with a gorgon or a griffin, a creature who does not exist. It is another thing to discover that the rhinocerous does exist and then take pleasure in the fact that he looks as if he didn't.

- G. K. Chesterton
from Orthodoxy

Quote of the Week

(Welcome to the newest feature of this blog. There are so many great quotes out there. Many of them play around in my head for days on end and give me real spiritual, intellectual, emotional nourishment. They make me think, or laugh, or cry, or go crazy. So I figured, why not share these with my faithful readership? I've optimistically called this "Quote of the Week" but if it slowly deteriorates into "Quote of the Bi-Week", "Quote of the Month", "Quote of the not sure when I did this last", "Quote of the oh, screw it already!" I hope you will understand. Enjoy. Think. Ponder. Laugh. Weep. Sing. Go crazy.)

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Everybody wants to go to heaven,
But nobody wants to die.

- Loretta Lynn
from "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven"
(covered by David Crowder on "A Collision"
which I am listening to right now)

Why me and my digestive tract are no longer friends

So I went to the doctor the other day. News is not good. I had the sneaky suspicion that I have an intestinal aversion to dairy products. He confirmed that that was probably true and that for the rest of my life my cereal will have to be accompanied by soy milk or worse, goat milk. And no more ice cream. Sundaes and parfaits and blizzards and waffle cones, thanks, it was good. I'll miss you all.
If only that was it. The good doctor suggested my stomach might also have a thing against gluten. The one thing I didn't want my stomach to have a thing against. So I'm currently testing out his theory, trying not to eat bread. And I think he might be right. Damn doctors. How, I ask, am I to survive without bread? No more peanut butter and jam sandwiches? I live off peanut butter and jam sandwiches. I eat them for my supper and I eat them for my lunch. If I had a hundred sandwiches I would eat them all at once!
So looks like no more ice cream and no more sandwiches for me. Curses.
At least this has given me occasion to get reaquainted with fruit in all its various forms.
(OK, confession time: I'm writing this while at work. So I'm sitting in the music department and this girl steps up to one of the listening stations, selects a CD and proceeds to sing very loudly and very, very out of tune. I'm trying my best not to laugh.)
So in the end, even though my dietary lifestyle is crumbling before my eyes, I can still laugh at stupid children...

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

- Julian of Norwich

Thoughts while in Sara's living room hanging out with a few friends

So the title is quite a fact right now. Everyone is eating ice cream. I am not. Doctor told me not to so probably a good idea to abstain. Sara did make me a cup of coffee though, so I am not completely deprived. She uses Folger's. I'm not quite sure about that. I'm pretty stuck on Tim Horton's. Somehow the whole world of Maxwell House, Folgers, etc, I'm just not sure. Anything you can buy in a huge can for $4.99 I just don't trust. Tim Horton's will do. When I get enough money I would like to graduate up to Kicking Horse whole bean coffee. Pure pleasure in a steaming cup. Need a coffee grinder first.
We went out for supper this evening to celebrate Sara finally being fully certified to teach in the Province of Manitoba. Just needed that Latin American history course. Essential for teaching grade 5.
These are great cookies.
We are just discussing the finer points of blogging. Or maybe it's bloging. Not sure if its a soft "G". Basically all you do is just write. It's great.
We came here to play Settlers. We're still sitting here in the living room. I think this gettogether needs some directing.
"Fussily" - Margaret just said "fussily". Good word. Just thought that was worth noting.
About that Settlers game.....

Moving (Pt. 4)

The new house has been moved into. The old house has been wept over. I think I'll be alright.

Moving (Pt. 3)

So I'm sitting here listening to some good, depressing music, still trying to get a handle on this whole moving thing. I was just sitting in the living room reading War and Peace, knowing that it would probably be the last time I ever get to sit by that window in that living room. I'm something of a sentimentalist, if you haven't figured that out yet. It all gets more amplified when it doesn't seem like anyone else cares. I want moving out to be something of a ceremony, a sacrament even. Everyone else just seems to think of it as just moving, what's the big deal?
I've been wanting to have a good weep over the whole thing, but it hasn't come yet. Damn manhood.
As I sat in the living room I got to thinking that leaving the house behind is like breaking up with a girl. Things will never be the same between the two of us. I'll never get those glimpses inside. I'll see her around, but it will be awkward. I knew her for so long, but now she seems such a stranger. She's seeing someone else now, so am I, but the memories haunt the both of us. Or at least me. Will she even remember me? Jilted. We're both jilted, even though I'm the one who's leaving.
Change like this just makes me too painfully aware of my own human frailty and transience. This house which was just always there, a silent pillar of my life, will no longer be there. 23 years, I just never thought it would end at 23 years. That's it. Seems like such a breath of time. Nothing. But growing up, it was always just there. Never thought it could or would or should end. That just never enters your head. This is home. Home doesn't change. Taken for granted, but in the best way. Trusted. Consistent. Now gone. Something that for 23 years was so real, will soon enough fade to faint memory. I'll forget the creaks. Forget which switch turned on which light. Forget the loose patio stone. Forget the nights shovelling snow, so much snow. Mornings on the patio with birds and squirrels.
As long as we had this house my childhood lived on. Lived on in the place, the land, the small piece of land on McIvor Ave. where I grew up. Learned to walk, bike, read, drink beer and coffee. Ran to from the school bus. My childhood lived here was attached to this land. Now it will pass as my memories of the land pass to nothing. And I'm shoved further into adulthood, now with no place to run home to.
But then I say, get a grip. It's just some grass and wood. Doesn't mean anything (like hell it doesn't! WTF). Home is where the heart is (Hallmark bullshit). But I guess it will be the people who make home home, eventually. For now though, I'm (dis)content to feel this loss deep as I can. Let it make me feel like throwing up. Let it make me want to kick something. Let it break me in pieces. I'll get back together eventually, maybe even stronger than before. But not yet.

Moving (Pt. 2)

Before I give the impression that I'm some sort of socially maladjusted tripe who can't handle a little change I feel that I should tell the other side of things. Damn, change is so conflicting. You want to be excited about new things, but don't want to feel like your shitting on what you're leaving behind. I do love our new house. Especially now that the seizure-inducing colour scheme has been painted over. No one can understand why we would want to move out of North Kildonan, like its the New Jerusalem or something. My quick answer is, "Why not?" Ultimately its not my decision but I can't blame my parents for wanting to move out of a place that once was so full of young life and now that us kids are moving on and moving out seems a bit heartbreakingly full of memories and not much else. My sisters and I are starting out new, why shouldn't Mom and Dad. So why not?
I do love the new house. Its great. Its old. The neighbourhood is wonderful. Its peaceful. That's the first thing I notice the second I open my car door. I can hear birds and children and leaves. Its wonderful.
My parents were saying the other day that they feel they are just looking after the house for a while, as if it has a life of its own which we are privileged enough to participate in for a short time. It was built in 1912. It built into a Victorian world. It knows what the world was like before the 20th century made it so bloody. Its been through the two world wars, the Depression, the Sixties, the rise and the fall of communism. We came bearing our belongings in vans and trucks, the first owners most likely used horses. You can tell the place was built in another era by one simple thing: Closets. They are few and small. My new bedroom doesn't even have one. People had less stuff. We have tons of it, can't find room for it all. But all of this is good, makes you think back and gives you some perspective on things. It is possible to live simply...
[I've worked too hard this week and drank too much beer tonight to go on any further...]

Moving

As most people who have any connection with me and my life know, our family is moving. Moving out of the only house we have ever called home. For the past 30 years 429 McIvor Ave. has been lived in by Bert and Alice van Leeuwen, and eventually Tamara, Robyn and Matthew. This little red house has been quite faithful to us over the years. It's hard to put into words how I feel at this point. I can't help but feel like we're abandoning her after so many years of keeping us sheltered from wind, rain, snow and flood (except for that one time...). She wasn't big, but was always somehow big enough. There's something about home that defies trying to describe it. Was it somehow better than any other person's home? Probably not. But it was my home. C. S. Lewis once wrote that "no man loves his city because it is great, but because it is his."
This house is quite wrapped up in our identity as a family, probably in more ways than we realise, that's what the Bachelor of Art in me says anyways. And so moving is not just some benign, meaningless act. It breaks your heart. It's like mourning the passing of a good friend. Like a funeral in a way. A large part of life has just dropped out of it and you're left feeling a bit empty, lost. The world you knew is no longer and now everything looks strange and unfriendly.
But in the same way, after the funeral, after saying goodbye life moves on in mysterious ways. The empty places get filled again. You slowly get to know the new world, adjust to the new light.
Because, all told, I think this move is a good thing. I love our new house, love the neighbourhood. Love the new paint job. And I look forward to making this new house a home.
So in the end, I think you just have to feel the sorrow. Let it take over when it wants to, shed the tears, but don't wallow in it. Mourn, but look ahead to the new world that might be dawning through the tears.

Transit Mystic IX

Reading on the bus. A great way to pass the time between origin and destination. Also very effective for giving the appearance of disinterested aloofness so important for proper transit posture.
Ever pay attention to what people read on the bus? The unwritten rule to reading on the bus is to read something light and interruptable (stay away from long philosophical treatises. Nothing steals your attention quite like passengers who get on the bus with mullets half way down their backs or eyebrows painted on half way up their foreheads). Mass market paperbacks and newspapers are standard. For the average person anything bigger, longer or heavier is simply unreadable for the long bumpy ride down Henderson Highway.
So you can understand my surprise when, a few months ago, this fellow comes on the bus, sets himself down on one of the sideways benches in the front, opens his briefcase and pulls out a large hardcover commentary on 1 Kings and then proceeds to read it from Portage & Main to Gilmour & Melon Lea. I applaud the effort.
I must confess that I too have trespassed into the realm of atypical transit reading material. This past week I found my nose wedged between the pages of Modern Art and the Death of a Culture by H. R. Rookmaaker. Not exactly Danielle Steele, but a good book for anyone puzzled by the modern art world. Highly recommended, but hard to follow if there is a mullet sitting in front of you.

Perplexing Questions

To all my fellow liberal arts majors out there...

Easter

I was sitting in church this morning and I got to thinking that, you know, we aren't really sure what to do with Easter.
Lent we can do. As much as it is sometimes a stretch to give up something or commit more time to reflect on Christ and his passion and all, with a little discipline it can be done, if not at least attempted.
Palm Sunday we can do because its a celebration of a king. Celebrations we can do. We can wave our palm branches and sing "Ride on, King Jesus".
We can do Good Friday because it is all about suffering and darkness and we all know what that's about.
But Easter is something else. Resurrection is something completely outside of anything we can experience or imagine. Discipline, partying, suffering are all things we know and have experienced in the day-to-day. But resurrection we can't seem to wrap our heads around. You see this in the world of art. There are countless depictions of Jesus' passion, his suffering and death. But the resurrected Jesus is a subject seldom portrayed; only the bravest and most skilled artists can pull it off. How does one go about showing with paint and brush someone who has seen death and lived to tell about it? It seems like it will always be either too ordinary or too extraordinary to be convincing.
Redemption we can sometimes get, I'll give us that. We can create paintings and write songs and make movies to show what redemption looks like (that scene at the end of "Shawshank Redemption" where Tim Robbins lifts up his arms to the sky and the rain comes immediately to mind). But redemption is a far cry from bodily resurrection. Redemption, in our world, is never full. Sure the prince will rescue the damsel, but he'll never quite get over his drinking problem. As we leave Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman on the beach, we can't help but think either a) they'll eventually get caught and end up in far deeper shit than they ever were before they escaped (sorry for those who haven't seen it yet...oh wait...haven't seen Shawshank Redemption? Slap yourself for me, then go rent it and watch it...it's brilliant), b) that the time they spent in prison will have had some latent effect on their mental states and sometime later they'll go nuts and start dressing like pirates, or c) (and most likely) both of them will, perhaps sooner, perhaps later, die. In the end after 'happily ever after' we all know death will have the last laugh. But death no more? It's a bottomless mystery.
And so on Easter morning, it just seems awkward to me. We just really aren't quite sure what to do. We extinguished the last light on Good Friday night. And then what? Light it up again? But we know that this is a different kind of light than that which was extinguished. Simply relighting the candle just brings us back to Christmas. Easter is something different. New life is hard to imagine when we are so fully involved in this one. And so Easter remains something of an unknown, as probably it should. It's something we will probably not quite get until we've climbed out of the grave ourselves and heard Jesus say to us, "Take off your grave clothes and Live."

Transit Mystic VIII

An elderly man steps on the bus. He is wearing a black fedora hat, a tweed overcoat, and brand new black and silver high top basketball shoes.

Transit Mystic VI

Two bubbooshka-ed old ladies walk very cafefully down the icy sidewalk, clutching the fence, as another scurries across the highway, hailing the bus driver.

Transit Mystic V

[Yeah I finally had it with my dumb word 'muss'. This segment has now been retitled and renumbered, giving up the Dickensian scheme for one more Virgilesque (or SuperBowlian, if you're feeling irreverent)]

A thought on the nature of my little observances... There's something very spiritual about them I'm finding. I haven't written much of late, mainly because I haven't seen much of late. Not that I haven't seen anything, just haven't been properly listening. That's how it often is between me and God, God being there and pulling off His little stunts and me simply failing to listen to what's going on, sitting there grim-faced and staring at the blurred sidewalk. Some weeks the things I see on the bus could fill a small book, others, especially the ones of late, leave me vacant and slack-jawed. I wish I knew some sort of formula for how to get into the right mode, maybe a pair of glasses that would throw everything into sharp relief. But I haven't found it. How this is all spiritual I don't really know if I can explain properly. I think there is something spiritual about being conscious of your surroundings and the people around you. There's definitely something spiritual about breaking into a deep breasted James Earl Jones-like chuckle, even if it is just in my head. I think God must look at the world the same way a lot of the time, just taking absolute delight in the stupidest, commonest, oddest sorts of things. Remembering with a chuckle,

"...and it was very good..."

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One actual observation I had today: Isn't it odd how when you step on the bus, all you see is the empty seat which you seek to claim? Isn't it odd how when you step on the bus, you don't see any faces? Tonight I got on the bus and tunnelvision kicked in and I made straight for the seat just behind the back door, just up the pharmacy steps they put in buses nowadays. All I saw was the seat. I did not see my good friend Andy sitting a few seats away, in the back where he likes to sit. I kind of felt bad. I'm sure he saw me come on, because I know that I certainly see every face that comes on after me. Must have seen me, said to himself, "Hey, that's my friend," then must have felt snubbed that all I saw was the seat...

Oranges

If I were to make a list of my top 5 favorite fruit, the orange would definitely be in the top 2. Isn't it wonderful that, when you take the first bite of a really well-formed, properly-tasting, juice ejaculating orange, you immediately forget the 10 minutes you just spent peeling the darn thing?

City Bus Muss the Fourth

The girl in front of me steps onto the bus. As she steps her pant leg rides up to reveal that she is not wearing any socks.