A Rainforest Holding On Resolutely To The Colour Green and A Secret Land With Very Comfortable Chairs

Hello gracious readership,
It has been some time since I actually wrote something that wasn't either a quote or an angst ridden blathering, so perhaps I should just talk about somethings which have been significant in this life o' mine.
Last week Thursday I walked to school for the first time. It takes about an hour, but it is a pleasant hour. The only thing separating my house from the Regent campus is a large west coast rainforest which, I was surprised to find out, holds on resolutely to the colour green, even on February 1st. So through the woods and forest glades I wandered, and heard the birds sing sweetly in the trees. There was no looking down from lofty mountain grandeur but my sentiment remained: "My God! How Great Thou Art." When I left the house that morning a thick fog hung just over the rooftops and slipped in and out of the tree tops. As the sun began to rise, the fog thinned and became shot through with sunlight. Why can't all days begin this way?
Also last week the new Regent Library opened. It is where I currently find myself and have often found myself lately. It is a wonderful place. Under the ground it is, so that we students feel like ants or rabbits scurrying about our work in a secret land as the rest of the world walks idly on. A secret land with very comfortable chairs. Chairs conducive to speed reading the Church Fathers. In the two hours before I plunked myself down here I rattled off 40 pages of the mystical writings of Gregory of Nyssa, the great Cappadocian Father, a giant in early Eastern Orthodox theology. What it was about? Haven't a clue. But I have to read 50 more pages of him and 50 more of some other dude and write responses for both before going to sleep tonight. So. Doesn't sound so impressive anymore. In fact, I should get out of here. Go home. Eat something. Then read, read, read, watch Seinfeld, and read some more. And then write. And then sleep.
And there you have it. Good night.

Where I've Been

I have been busy, sick, stressed out, happy, sad, depressed, overjoyed, hopelessly short on money, researching the eschatology of John Calvin, walking the beach, tired, eating and drinking and sometimes making merry, and most of all on the couch, in the coffee shop, at the library reading, reading, and humming hymns on the way to the bus stop. In short, I've been alive.
Thanks for your concern.

All is Calm, All is Bright

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God, and saying:

Ere zij God in den hoge!
Vrede op aarde,
In de mensen
Een welbehagen.

Merry Christmas everyone

Things observed from the back of a Winnipeg Transit bus

OK, I don't know what it is about Winnipeg Transit buses, but there just seems to be more interesting things happening on them compared to their Vancouver counterparts. Perhaps this is because in Winnipeg I get to sit in the back and observe; in Vancouver I always end up squished in the one square foot space left by the front door...or maybe its all because the good people of Winnipeg are just plain more interesting. Anyways....
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Two mornings in a row this otherwise normal seeming middle-aged man gets off the bus at the legislature with his right boot halfway on, halfway off. Like he left the house in a rush that morning and didn't have the time to put it on properly. He steps off, and proceeds with purpose in a straight line to his destination, through the snow, heedless of the beaten path just off to his side, with his right boot halfway on, halfway off and the cuff of his pantleg resting wrinkled upon the top. Two mornings, two new paths through the snow. Perhaps it will all be beaten down by the end of the winter. Beaten down by this man with his right boot halfway on, halfway off and the cuff of his pantleg resting wrinkled upon the top.

Christmas Reflection Courtesy of St. Augustine

In honour of the season, a wonderful, imagery-laden quote from our good friend St. Augustine. It's worth a few reads.

The Word of the Father,
by whom all the cycles of time was made,
when he was made flesh,
caused the day of his birth to take place in time,
and in this human genesis willed to have one day,
when no day opens without His divine command.

With the Father He precedes all the ages of the world,
by the Mother He set Himself on this day
in the courses of the years.

The Maker of man was made man,
that the Ruler of the stars might suck at the breast;
that the Bread might be hungered;
the Fountain, thirst;
the Light, sleep;
the Way be wearied by the journey;
the Truth be accused by false witnesses;
the Judge of the living and the dead be judged by a mortal judge;
the Chastener be chastised with whips;
the Vine be crowned with thorns;
the Foundation be hung upon the tree;
Strength be made weak;
Health be wounded;
Life die...

He who was before all the ages,
without any beginning of days, Son of God,
deigned in these days just past to be the Son of man;
and He who was begotten of the Father,
not made by the Father,
was 'made' in the mother whom He had made;
that here and now He might spring from Her,
who except through Him could no-when and no-where have been.

- St. Augustine
Sermon CXCI (on Christmas)

Connection

Paper writing: I love it and I hate it. I hate how it takes so long to take an idea you have fully intact and perfect in your head and shoehorn it into the limited vocabulary you have from staying up late reading the dictionary. Writing essays is like wrestling for me. I wrestle this idea into 10 pages of prose.
I just handed an essay on the relationship between Pope Gregory VII and King William the Conqueror of England. Don't worry, I can see you staring at your computer screen and tilting your head and saying "hm" in sympathetic interest. That's been the typical response. Its an odd topic I'll admit. I came attracted to it because in general I love historical connection. Sure it's nice to have all these random facts in your head, but when you can connect things together like Christmas cards on a string above the mantle, it's beautiful.
What comes to mind when you think of 11th century Europe? Probably not much. What about the year 1066? If you grew up in the Commonwealth you should know that this is the date of the Battle of Hastings, the Norman Conquest, King Harold getting shot in the eye, King William taking the throne in the last successful military invasion of the England. What else? Well, the Church had gone to shit, priests were getting married, holy things were being bought and sold like used cars, hardly the kingdom of God. But along comes a number of pious popes who wanted to change that and so we get the papal reforms. Their solution to the problems in the church? Stop people from doing bad things. How were going to do that? By having more authority. If only the word of the pope would be obeyed lickety-split, there'd be no problems. The problem was that this other group of fellows, let's call them 'kings', because that's what they were, weren't too quick to take orders from a pope and so there's this big controversy, all of a sudden you have three guys claiming to pope, yadda yadda yadda.
So my question: how did these two events converge? I basically threw them at each other and saw where the sparks flew and started writing. Turns out William helped the papal agenda along rather nicely. They got on relatively well. William helped the papacy bring about reform and the papacy helped William assert his rule over the English he didn't slaughter. That's about it.
Until you look further and you see that here we have England and the pope getting along nicely, but in 500 years with old Henk #8 things changed.
So that is when history gets fun for myself. When you begin to string the lines from one event to another across geography, across time.
If anyone actually wants to read my paper, let me know I'll send you a copy. (...crickets...tumbleweed...)
As for me, I have library books to return.

This Is My Father's World

If you've been watching the news lately you may have seen that Vancouver got a huge dump of snow the past couple days. It has really made the city quite beautiful the way the snow just hangs on every twig and leaf of every tree. A winter wonderland if there ever was one. This morning I went for a walk in my local rainforest and it was like Narnia, all enchanted and silent. It was one of those experiences you just want to bundle up and put in your pocket but at the same time something powerful and awesome you just want to leave free to prance and blow as it wills.
The power went out at my house around 8 o'clock this morning. Odd how that happens. One moment the lights are lighting, the fridge is refrigerating, the clocks are keeping time, the TV's entertaining, the computer's computing; the next: nothing. Silence. Peace. It's like God finally hit the snooze bar.
But after a few hours you start to get a bit uneasy. You hit light switches unconsciously and are shocked when nothing happens. I'm so used to pushing power buttons and having devices respond accordingly and instantly. The temperature starts going down. Will the power ever be restored?
So KC and I spent the afternoon at a crowded Starbucks with power. But night descended and begged the question: Has the power been restored? The whole neighbourhood was dark. As we walked from the bus stop to our house it was one of the most eerie feelings. Houses and streets and no lights. In a few houses you could see candlelight or firelight. There's something very welcoming and homey about that light. But it was like the apocalypse had just come down. It was a strange world. Quiet. A wonderful and terrifying quiet. We lit our gloomy basement with tea lights and had a cigarette outside. It all caused me to reflect on whether I could live without electricity and if perhaps one day we will have to. Would I be able to survive?
The power came back on around 8 o'clock in the evening and the buzzes and the whirls resumed their monotone song as if nothing had happened. But those twelve hours of perfect, whole silence made me wonder and look forward to a new world, covered in silent white, where the only noises are the crunch of snow, the muffled voice of a friend and the warm crackle of fire.

This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father’s world, the birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass;
He speaks to me everywhere.

This is my Father’s world, should my heart be ever sad?
The lord is King—let the heavens ring. God reigns—let the earth be glad.
This is my Father’s world. Now closer to Heaven bound,
For dear to God is the earth Christ trod.
No place but is holy ground.

This is my Father’s world. I walk a desert lone.
In a bush ablaze to my wondering gaze God makes His glory known.
This is my Father’s world, a wanderer I may roam
Whate’er my lot, it matters not,
My heart is still at home.

Maltie D. Babcock, 1901

Paper Done....Let's Go Drinking!!

It has been some time since I last just posted something about life. I just finished my first significant research paper of my Regent career. The last two days I have been locked in my room in front of my laptop, wrestling my topic into 1500 words. It's not very good but at least its out of the way and now I know for later how not to go about writing a paper. Its been a while since I've written one and I'm afraid to say I'm somewhat rusty. The paper was only five pages. Apparently I wrote it on the Iona monastery and its place in history of Christianity. My problem is that I'm so used to writing history papers that even when I'm not supposed to write a history paper I end up writing a history paper. As a result of this I feel that I get too hung up on details of events and then explaining these details soon take up my alloted amount of words. Well how do you say anything of substance in five pages anyways. Hopefully whoever's marking my paper is in a good mood and doesn't know much about Iona. That always helps, I find.

Dried Glue in the Mouth

If you sleep the entire night with your mouth open, then when you wake up it feels like your mouth is filled with dried white glue. I found that out this morning.

Quote of the Week

(Yes, I know two in one day. Chesterton. Enough said.)
The simplest truth about man is that he is a very strange being; almost in the sense of being a stranger on the earth. In all sobriety, he has much more of the external appearance of one bringing alien habits from another land than of a mere growth of this one. He has an unfair advantage and an unfair disadvantage. he cannot sleep in his own skin; he cannot trust his own instincts. He is at once a creator moving miraculous hands and fingers and a kind of cripple. He is wrapped in artificial bandages called clothes; he is propped on artificial crutches called furniture. His mind has the same doubtful liberties and the same wild limitations. Alone among the animals, he is shaken with the beautiful madness called laughter; as if he had caught sight of some secret in the very shape of the universe hidden from the universe itself. Alone among the animals he feels the need of averting his thought from the root realities of his own bodily being; of hiding them as in the presence of some higher possibility which creates the mystery of shame. Whether we praise these things as natural to man or abuse them as artificial in nature, they remain in the same sense unique. This is realised by the whole popular instinct called religion.

G. K. Chesterton
from The Everlasting Man

Quote of the Week

There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place.

G. K. Chesterton
the opening line of The Everlasting Man

CRC

Yesterday for the first time since I moved to Vancouver I attended a CRC church. My buddy Brian and his wife Candice invited me. Its way on the other side of the city. We got there late. But the way that people looked at us when we marched down the aisle escorted by an usher to the seat usually occupied by some old matriarch of the church who happened to be away made me feel at home. There is just something about the CRC--the way the worship team leads, the way people modestly put their offering envelopes into the plate, the way that the kid who read Scripture read Scripture, the way that everyone exited the sanctuary afterwards and, after shaking hands with the domine, filed into the fellowship hall--which is just like a good pair of socks on a cold damp morning. I felt refreshingly at home and comfortable.

Quote of the Week

I turned to Alypius and cried out: 'What is wrong with us? What is this that you have heard? Uneducated people are rising up and capturing heaven, and we with our high culture without any heart--see where we roll in the mud of flesh and blood. Is it because they are ahead of us that we are ashamed to follow? Do we feel no shame at making not even an attempt to follow?'

- Augustine of Hippo
from Confessions (where else?)

Elevators

The other night I got stuck in an elevator.
Why was I in the elevator when I was only going down 4 floors? Should have taken the stairs.
Stuck for half an hour. Along with KC, Arthur, Julie, Richard, Jan, Lesslie-Ann, some lady from the UK, and Johnny, the 125 pound Great Perenese dog--the hugest dog I've ever met.
We glided to a stop a foot and a half below the second floor.
Pushed that little telephone button. Figured we would get put through to the elevator technician who should have lived on the second floor. Instead we get this call centre who knows where. Toronto probably. Hope the elevator didn't get charged the long distance.
Tried my best MacGyver resourcefulness. Couldn't unstuck. I honestly don't think MacGyver would have been able to bust out of that elevator. It was shut solid. There wasn't even that panel on the ceiling which is always so easy to punch out. No secret lever anywhere.
Annoying how impossible it was to get out of that thing. Seems to be symptomatic of Western society, can't fix anything yourself, can't trust anyone with potentially useful things.
We were in there for a long time. Got so stuffy. The four halogen lights in the impenetrable ceiling didn't help things.
In the meantime Richard told us a story of how he got hit by a 3/4 tonne pickup and walked away with only a concussion.
In the end we tricked the elevator into letting us out. Afterwards we ate dessert and talked theology.

Happy Birthday to Jim

On Tuesday I got to sing happy birthday to and eat birthday cake with J. I. Packer. Yup. Thought that was worthy of a post. He turned 80 this summer, so we had a belated celebration with him.

He preached at Regent's weekly chapel service. He surprised me. I mean, he's really old, slightly hunched over, very deliberate in his movements. But he sprang up there and just started rolling with this quick wit that had the whole place in stitches. I mean, he's a very funny man. Not something you'd expect from a legendary theologian. And then I find out that he loves hiking. Hiking, not mall-walking, or even street walking, hiking through the woods over rocks and around trees and through the mud. So Jim Packer: author of "Knowing God", one of the 25 most influential evangelicals according to Time magazine, old man, hiker and comedian. What next? Does Eugene Petersen knit and stutter? Stay tuned...

And did I mention that Jim is my neighbour? Well he is.

As per Mel's Request (see comment on previous post): Some Observations of Bus Riders in Vancouver (none of them good)

Vancouver busriders need to have a lesson on proper bus etiquette. The phrase, "please, move to the back of the bus," doesn't seem to make sense to them. They just look around, look back at the vast empty space between them and the back of the bus, then ahead at the crowd of people trying to squish their way on, then shrug and continue not moving to the back of the bus. What then happens is that buses 'fill up' rather quickly. And so for me, trying to catch the bus toward the end of the route, there is never any room in the buses. Of course there would be if people knew how to properly load a bus. And so I stand at the stop along with a host of other patient persons, and watch as bus after bus after bus flies by unable to pick us up. Needless to say, that gets rather frustrating after a while.
On a brighter note, the seats in Vancouver buses are much more comfy than Winnipeg buses. The bus seats here actually have cushions on them, nice thick ones. I could ride the bus for hours, if I could ever get on one...

Quote of the Week

The heavenly treasuries are indeed great: God cannot be measured in the heart, and he is incomprehensible in the mind; he who holds the earth in the hollow of his hand. Who perceives the measure of his right hand? Who knows his finger? Or who understands his hand - that hand which measures immensity; that hand which, by its own measure, spreads out the measure of the heavens, and which holds in its hollow the earth with the abysses; which contains in itself the breadth, and the length, and the deep below, and the height above the whole creation; which is seen, which is heard and understood, and which is invisible? And for this reason God is 'above all principality, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named', of all things which have been created and established. He it is who fills the heavens, and views the abysses, who is also present with every one of us.

- Irenaeus of Lyon
from Against Heresies

Greek to me

Alpha
Beta
Gamma
Delta
Epsilon
Zeta
Eta
Theta
Iota
Kappa
Lambda
Mu
Nu
Xi
Omicron
Pi
Rho
Sigma
Tau
Upsilon
Phi
Chi
Psi
Omega

There you have it. The Greek alphabet. Memorized by yours truly in the wee hours of Tuesday night. Who rules? I do.

Matthew. Winnipeg. MCS.

So here I am in Vancouver. I feel like I need to write some profound blog about the metaphysics of significant change. So I haven't blogged for a long while, waiting for divine revelation or something. I still haven't been struck by lightning so I figured I should just blog and get it out of the way and let life continue as usual.
This past week has been full of introductions. The repetition of three questions:
"What is you name?"
"Where are you from?"
"What program are you in?"
No one actually listening or really caring, but needing to say something and desperately trying to make a good first impression. I hate it. But I guess we have to do it. How else do you insert yourself into a new society of people? You ask and answer the superficial questions just to make contact of some kind. The meaningful meetings will come eventually. For now we make do.

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