another day, another latte...

perhaps just past 6am on a Saturday morning is not the best time to be blogging, but here I am trying to make sense of life already at the early stages of the day... (by making sense of life, I mean wondering where my work shoes are) Yes I'm heading off to make sure addicts have their fix in the form of coffee's, latte's, and frappuccino's. One of the things I like about working on Saturdays is the fact that most people that come in on this day always come in on this day...you get to know the folks a little bit, beyond just another latte for the customer. It feels real good to have someone come in, recognize you, and even call you by name as if they are happy you are working that day, serving them.

we'll see how this day goes, maybe there'll be some crazy event that happens and I'll have some fantastic thing to write about. or maybe, it'll just be another day, another latte...

An old franciscan once said...

If you feel the call of the spirit, then be holy with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your strength. If, however, because of human weakness, you cannot be holy, then be perfect with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your strength.

But if you cannot be perfect because of the vanity of your life, then be good with all your soul...Yet, if you cannot be good because of the trickery of the Evil One, then be wise with all your soul...

If, in the end, you can neither be holy, nor perfect, nor good, nor wise because of the weight of your sins, then carry this weight before God and surrender your life to his divine mercy...

If you do this, without bitterness, with all humility, and with a joyous spirit due to the tenderness of a God who loves the sinful and ungrateful, then you will begin to feel what it is to be wise, you will learn what it is to be good, you will slowly aspire to be perfect, and finally you will long to be holy.

mondays...

Because I work at two different places right now (Starbucks and Faith Covenant Church), the schedules are such that I work 6 days a week...I don't work, technically, more than 40-45 hours a week between the two, but I end up working tuesday to sunday at either place.

This makes monday my only day off.

As I get older, and as I start to be more confident in what I like, I'm realizing the value of doing what I like on my day off. For example, I used to think I'd have to do all the little detail things, the errands and what not on my day off in order to make it through the rest of the week. Yesterday, I did only what I liked. I woke up, mulled around the house a few minutes, then took a walk to the Grant Park Mall. I love that walk, and I love that mall, because they are both quiet for me. In the mall there is a McNally Robinson's, so I usually go there to read or look at books. Yesterday I was feeling the pressure to read and get caught up on my reading...but then I realized, no I just want to browse through the books and just look around...I just want to sit in the Prairie Ink Restaurant and have a nice lunch, and not worry about how much time I'm spending in there. So I did.

It was splendid.

There is real wisdom, I think, in taking care of yourself...I know that sounds elementary and simplistic, but I wonder how much we actually do that.

I guess for most people mondays are killer. But for me...they are a lifesaver.

our very own sauna...

I posted a while back about how this house (in the summertime) is a heat box, that you lose weight just living here. Well yesterday night surpassed anything I'd experienced at 690 Jackson Avenue.

Holy moley it was a suana in here yesterday, especially yesterday night. No matter how many windows we opened, we simply could not cool off the place last night. Bruce, Matt, and myself live in the upstairs, in the tower, up in the heavens, or as Clayton puts it, "the upside down hell" in the summertime. It's brutal.

It's an awful feeling being in bed, having no covers, wearing only some gotch and still feeling as though you're in your very own sauna, which normally I suppose would be a posh thing to have, but in this case it sucks.

It's time to bring out my industrial heat killing, fast air blowing, machine I affectionately call "fan-zilla."

Time to cool off.

"It is not joy...

...that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful," says Brother David Steindt-Rast. I'm reading this book called "Ruthless Trust" by this guy named Brennan Manning. Tonight I was reading about gratefulness, and realized I often lack the fruit of the Spirit known as joy, and maybe (just maybe), the reason for this may have some correlation to the fact that I forget to be grateful...



As Manning puts it, we often forget "the way of gratefulness." And it is "a way" I think, it's a way of living, especially as a follower of Jesus. And if being a follower means doing what the person you're following is doing, being grateful is pretty much demanded of us seeing as how Jesus was always giving thanks to God.



The chapter was talking about how it's hard to have a heart of gratitude when we seem to be getting the screw job in life. For example, when your interior life sucks, or when your marriage is falling apart, or when someone dies, or when you just feel like a no good loser.



As I was thinking about this, and as I was thinking about how we often get pissed off at God during these circumstances ( at least how I often get ticked at God during these circumstances), I was reminded of a guy in my small group who was sharing about a hard circumstance in his life.



His dad had died some years ago, and if that wasn't bad enough, his mom's health was failing, slowly but surely...she was now losing her eyesight at this particular time, and he was sharing the heartache he felt when he saw struggling to do everyday normal tasks. After he was done sharing, he said something so profound, I knew right it was something that is true and right. He said, "I've come to the point where I realize that God owes me nothing." Those are virtually the same words God speaks to Job after Job's life falls apart on him and he tries to find meaning in all of it... something in my spirit finds freedom in those words, a freedom I can't fully explain.



So, I must remember this when I am in despair, when I am in the darkness, when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, when my interior life sucks, when things just don't seem to add up in our human equation of fairness...



Listen to these hopeful words, spoken by Brennan Manning,



To be grateful for unanswered prayer, to give thanks in a state of interior desolation, to trust in the love of God in the face of marvels, cruel circumstances, obscenities, and commonplaces of life is to whisper a doxology in darkness. (Manning, Ruthless Trust, 37)

another picture of the cat...

this is the catfish I caught about 30 seconds after I cast my line for the first time... that is the wierdest feeling having your hand in it's mouth!

Cats on the Red...

Yesterday, Doug Watt (in the background of this picture), a friend from our church took Gavin (holding that big ugly fish), Erik, and myself out on the Red River near lockport (only about 10 minutes from Winnipeg) to go catfishing.

If you have never done this, you need to!

The fishing that I am used to is bobber fishing, where you catch a fish that maybe weighs 2 pounds...if your lucky. This kind of fishing is much different. First, the bait you use isn't some little wussy worm, but a montster piece of shrimp...In fact these catfish are so big, that when we ran out of shrimp, doug cut up a Goldeye that he had caught earlier, and we put him on the line. Gavin got the fish head on his line.

When these things bite, you know the fricker is on there. They grab it and run with it. As doug says, these things are "preditors." When they bite, you've gotta really hold onto the rod, set it on your stomach, or your belt, and pull hard, then you reel it in slowly at the right times.

When you finally get the thing close enough, dougie grabs the net and snags it...Then when you actually see the thing you've tired so long to get in the boat, you want to throw it back right away, because they are SO ugly. Nasty things really. They're the type of creatures you just want to hit with the ugly stick... but it's so worth it to so them, what a rush!

Then after you've measured it, (mine was 32 inches long, and about 24 pounds), you take a picture with your prize catch. This is herocious. You've gotta stick your hand down it's mouth, let it bite onto you, then pick it up and hold it's tail end with your other hand... The picture I posted on the top is what this looks like, that is Gavin with his monster.

All in all, it was a beauty day with the boys, fishing in the sunshine, shootin' the breeze, some sunflower seeds, some cigars. All was good.

It's a beauty having friends like dougie around. thanks dougie.

feels like the west coast...

winnipeg has felt a little bit like Portland or Vancouver, or Seattle with all of the rain and clouds we've been getting over the last couple weeks.

I lived in Portland for about 6 months, during the rainy season. It wasn't all that bad the year I lived there, it was actually a pretty dry winter. But I do remember March. March was kind of like what we were having here, except even more rain if you can believe it.

When it get's like this, you wonder if you will ever see the sunshine again. You sometimes wonder if you even remember what the sun looks like. You start to expect clouds and rain in the morning, clouds and rain in the afternoon, and clouds and more rain in the evening and night.

But then, something beautiful happens... It happens on the west coast, and it's happening here this morning in Winnipeg...You get up, and look out the window and see this amazing blue thing up above. they call it "sky." Ah, a break from the clouds! You see and feel this brilliant light that shines on everything from up above, they call this "sun." Then all of the sudden, for me, you are drawn to a happy place, and this happy place is not stagnant... You want to be pro-active in showing your happiness. You want to say something to the person who gave you these gifts...they call this "thankfulness."

I am thankful today, Creator God, for this break in the weather...and how it reminds me that you will never forsake your people, that you are a good God, and that you desire to give us good and perfect things.