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..."

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

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.

Be ye neither touter nor importunist

[This is a picture Dave Bruinsma took while in Cornwall, England posted for your amusement.]

...so don't even think of it.

City Bus Muss the Second

[OK, I wasn't actually on the bus when this happened, but I think if I wasn't a bus rider this wouldn't be a muss (see definition below)]

An old man on one of those fancy motorized old people scooters, racing down Kennedy St., towing a wheelchair which carried his wife who was wearing an orange and yellow reflective vest.

City Bus Muss the First

On the sidewalk stand two middle aged native men with huge fluorescent pink sacks at their feet, getting out their bus fare.

Come on guys....guys?

When you were little did the following ever happen to you: You are hanging out with a friend and all of a sudden you have a strong desire to have contest of one sort or another with that person. It could be running down the sidewalk or seeing how many peas you could suck through your nose. Did it ever happen to you that you would dive into the contest with full enthusiasm and look over only to find your friend either calmly strolling behind you or eating their peas with a fork? Remember what that felt like?

It seems to me that Christianity is in the same situation. For a long time Christians have been competing with whatever the latest heresy happens to be. Creationism vs. Evolutionism being a good example. It seems to me that with the postmodern movement artists, philosophers, and their disciples have just said "Fuck it. I'm just not racing anymore." And then Christianity is left on the track, wanting to race but with no one to compete with. Here's Christianity doing all the training for a race which no one wants to run anymore. In much of the apologetic exercise today we're getting ready for a race, while the philosophers are sitting on the couch eating nachoes. We're trying to prove something and the problem is not that people disagree, they just don't give a fuck. So what are we supposed to do now? The most disturbing reaction Christians face today is not, "I disagree". It's "I don't care" or "I don't give a fuck" which will probably upset some people but which I think sums up well the attitude of most people today.
So what are we to do? My short answer is to stop trying to convince people and just start loving them. People aren't sitting there reasoning with themselves about which religion to pick. They're hurting, they're suffering, they need Jesus, but not in the way we think that they need Jesus in their hearts so that they don't have to go to hell. They're hurting and they need to be shown the one man who once and for all showed us what it means to truly live.

Balderdash

I just finished playing a game of Balderdash with some really good friends. I seriously haven't laughed that hard in far too long. I think it is necessary that some of the definitions be published here so that I don't forget them (* = correct definition):

fadge:

1. a Shakesperean expression meaning "turn out" as in "how will this fadge?"
2. goat entrails
3. a disease symptomatic of lesions and boils that form in the arm and elbow pits
4. what one says when all of their creative powers have left them

asanka:

1. the title given to the second-highest ranked sumo wrestler
2. * one followed by 45 zeros: a Buddhist type of counting
3. a vietnamese wine, with a hint of bamboo
4. the cloud of dust that rises when you flop down onto an old couch

abigeus:

1. * one who steals cows to make a living
2. a decorative headpiece worn by a show pony
3. any leftovers that taste better than the original meal

noddlethatcher:

1. a fruitless vine
2. one who is obsessed with buttons and zippers

pannychous:

1. * anyone or anything that lasts all night

juffle:

1. * to shuffle about in sloppy old shoes
2. the exclamation of surprise at finding something
3. a disagreement resulting in mussed up hair and sometimes ripped shirts
4. to put out a match by a shake or wag of the arm
5. to have one's mustache blown by the wind

Perhaps you don't find these all that funny...I don't care, they were at the time and that's all that's important. In conclusion, you should play Balderdash more often.

And by the way, I won.

To WestJet, with Love

Boy, I love flying with WestJet. I just did this morning. Got up at an ungodly hour after going to bed at an even more ungodly hour. But those WestJet people are just so great. There is life in WestJet. Here's why. It's because in all the scripted rule-following that is airline travel these days, WestJet allows some sort of spontenaity in their following of these rules. Attendants are allowed to joke around and make mistakes when they are talking about the safely features. Somehow this makes me feel more safe. Like how a person who can take being made fun of a little is somehow more real and trustworthy or something like that. Anyways, it warmed my heart that in the paranoid North American world, we can have people who know the rules and follow them, but allow life to come in and dance a little jig every once in a while.

When I fly with WestJet I feel like a person. True, I still have to pay for earphones and anything more than the equivalent of 3 pretzels, but at least its fun and that's how airline travel should be. Never lose the wonder and excitement that comes with being able to fly, even if you are flying in a rather sanitized environment....

Also, thumbs up for facilitating a tight transfer in Calgary. After a fiercely delayed flight out of Winnipeg, I was anticipating missing my connecting flight to Edmonton and having my much needed vacation put on hold indefinately, but instead everything went rather smoothly and I did make my flight here to Edmonton. So thank you WestJet, even though you are big and corporate and probably doing some irrepairable damage somewhere to someone, you do a good job and that's all we really want, isn't it?

[blank]

Don't you hate it when you feel like you should write and you try and it's like your brain completely empties. I'm leaving for Edmonton on Friday for a much anticipated weekend trip/reunion frenzy. I feel like it would be responsible of me, being a new blogger and trying to get off on the right foot, to say something profound about old friends and travelling, but I seriously can't come up with anything. I even tried a haiku. Nothing. Empty brain. I guess I should just go to bed. Good night.

Me trying to figure out why the hell I thought I should start a blog

I have something of a dubious relationship to writing. On the one hand I've been told by a couple people that I can do it and I do really enjoy rereading what I've written, call me a narcissist if you want. But then on the other hand I often find myself really intimidated by the really good writers out there, thinking that I don't really have anything all that brilliant to add. A lot of times when I'm writing I feel something like an 11-year-old leaning up against the fence beside his dad and trying to get his elbows up on the edge to look like a grown-up, but having to be content with just resting his chin on the wood because that's as high as I can reach. At least I can still see over...

But nevertheless, I figured it might be fun to get on this blogging bandwagon. If anything it will be a good exercise for myself. I kept a journal all through grade 12, perhaps this will end up as just a personal journal that I can look back on one day. Look back and wonder how I ever made it through.

I have entitled this blog 'stabs in the dark', the same title I used for my old King's Chronicle column. That's often what I feel like I'm doing when I write. There is far more darkness out there than I'd often like to admit, far too much that I haven't a clue about, but every once in a while I see a flash of light or hear the shuffling of feet. It is these unnothingnesses that I'd like to try to describe. My mind tends to wander uncontrollably, so I'm sure this blog will act accordingly. Enjoy.