I Used To Have Journals To Write This Down

I got more phone calls today than I usually get in two weeks.
Can I borrow your truck?
Tell Sherry there's a talent show from 9-10.
We're getting pizza, do you want any?
Can you bring me back my pressure washer?
Can I talk to Sherry about planning her a baby shower?
I wanted to let you know that we had a scare on the drive home. My heart started racing a couple of times. We almost went to the hospital but didn't. It gradually slowed down a little every half hour. My doctor left me a message to see him anyway so maybe my meds will get adjusted then. Don't worry her about it.

Then I read Faye's lament.

Things of sadness.
Little girl, there is a spider hanging from a thread outside. Grass and weeds grow in my yard despite being buried in mulch or construction debris or excavation mess. Your mother and I look at each other with deep love. I have dreams, and they're probably the wrong ones, and I'm not very good at completing them or paying for them, but I will tell you that eating ants is fun, and that even though there are people in this world who murder babies or worse, it is still a beautiful place, a place worth living in.

A Mostly Private Prayer Wall

Dear Jesus,

It's 10:00 PM but it might as well be 1 AM. I'm tired. My brain hasn't stopped working yet though. Epic had a leadership meeting yesterday night but I wasn't there. I did get emailed about it, however being a newborn father, it just didn't seem very important. But maybe it was, because now I'm sitting here writing instead of being in bed, waiting to change a diaper.

I asked Jason and Megan about it while they were BBQing their supper and it led only to more questions. It always goes that way.

Can I tell you about one of the questions? Jason asked, why Converge (as opposed to just house churches)? Megan had several reasons I've heard before but the one I thought was interesting (given that she doesn't even have children to make this sort of thing a duty) is that she wants children to learn and grow in their faith and do house churches focus on that?

Now perhaps that wasn't very important to Jason because he went to a large church where he may have felt lost in the crowd. For me, Megan's right. Church was a rich time for me growing up. Kids are very curious and idealistic and we had lots of questions to figure out together. We had really good teachers that stuck with us for a whole year or a few.

Thanks for those teachers and those kids and for feeding me so I could grow like my daughter is doing.

I'm still very curious and idealistic, and I want to know what our church should do.

Someone once prayed for me and told me that they saw a picture of a ship setting sail on an exploration voyage.

I once announced to a church a picture from a song that I couldn't shake while praying, about a ship lost at sea, not in crisis, but just floating.

That ship is still at least me.

Dear Amara Mia

Your Mom is sleeping, I just changed your diaper, and you are lying beside me on the love seat. You are wide awake and looking at me. I've got Bond's Shine album playing for you. They say upbeat classical music is smart for babies. I just felt like putting it on though. We're going to have BBQ Salmon for dinner soon but right now I wanted to write you your first letter. If I mailed it you might not receive it any time soon because Canada Post is on strike.

Sorry, you got upset and I couldn't fool you with my finger. You wanted Mom. When I finally relented and stood up to take you upstairs though, I started to dance. You became quite taken and so I continued. First you stared into my eyes, and I stared right back because yours are beautiful. Later you noticed something beyond me, something better, and I asked you if you could see Jesus. Then I remembered that he likes to dance to, so I had to keep going. Eventually you closed your eyes but still I danced a little more until I was tired. You are nine days old, and I have told you many times, I love you.

Shall I tell you a little about yourself? You are beautiful, and not all babies can claim such things so young. You like to move your arms - none of that swaddling you in tight stuff. You don't cry right away. You wait until we neglect to feed you too long, but don't worry, we don't do that. Sometimes you are fussy when we change your diaper but I think it's usually if you are cold or hungry. Sometimes you don't fuss at all for me. I like to ask you to help me put your clothes on. I get you to kick your legs into your sleeper legs. I get you to grab my finger to pull your hands through the sleeves. I have made up many improvised songs about things like you avoiding rhinos or chasing chickens up hills or climbing trees to talk to birds. My Dad gave me a Father's Day card when you had just been outside for three days and told me to sing you Ma Ma Ma Moo Cows. I have on a couple of occasions. You have only been out of the house twice. When you were a week old we took you to Mom's Principal's house for a staff BBQ. Everyone thought you were fantastic. You weren't fazed at all with being put in a car seat, and you fell asleep on the way home. Today we took you to visit your neighbours across the street. They too think you're great. You weren't super thrilled when your Mom and I gave you a bath yesterday, but I think it's because you got a little cold. You settled down as soon as you were wrapped up and dry. You didn't mind us washing your hair before that. We were surprised. You even liked getting your hair towelled dry. You inherited your Mom's cat-like tendencies.

Your Mom's parents drove out right away intent on seeing you first. They left before you even came out of Mom. They made it on time. Your Grandma watched you being born, and your Grandpa stayed in the vehicle and prayed. He didn't like to hear his daughter working so hard. Your Mom did an awesome job. She did work very hard and I cried a few times. Your grandparents stayed all week to spend time with you. They loved to hold you, and you kept smiling at them. I called my Dad to tell him about you three hours after you were born. He was thrilled and came right away to meet you before your Aunt's wedding. He took a picture and showed everyone at the wedding, including your Great Grandparents. They have called a couple of times and would love to see you too. My Dad came back on Father's Day and got to spend more time with you. He never stopped smiling. Your Mom made me a very delicious chocolate pie.

What else would you like to know? Your weight and length? I could never remember mine, but maybe that's because it wasn't part of a story. Yours was 7 lbs and 6 oz, and you were 21" long. Does that sound exciting, or just gibberish? Well how about a story then.

Your due date was Monday June 20, which is the day before the Summer Solstice. You picked a good due date in my opinion because I am pretty much solar-powered and that is the longest day of the year. The week beforehand, I was scheduled to work on a Ranch west of a little town called Nanton. My boss knew about your due date and wasn't sure I should go, because what if I had to leave to help your Mommy? I went anyway, and brought my phone, ready to bolt if the time came.

[You interrupted this story again and this time I did go let you drink, while I got supper ready]
Love, your Dad.

Oh Canada, Jesus, and Change

Genesis 1:27-31

So God created human beings in his own image.

In the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them. T

hen God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”

Then God said, "Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—everything that has life.” And that is what happened.

Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!

Colossians 3:10
Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.

Mark 9:12

And He said to them, "Elijah does first come and restore all things. And yet how is it written of the Son of Man that He will suffer many things and be treated with contempt?

Revelation 22:1-3

Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. It flowed down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations. No longer will there be a curse upon anything. For the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and his servants will worship him.

Kevin Deane revisited an old idea last week at church. The larger story of God's work begins when heaven and earth were the same place, a garden, and ends with that being restored. In between can be painful. How do I respond? Mourn and wait for 'freedom'? Is that the good news? Jesus healed people over and over during his life, restoring crippled legs to walking, blind eyes to seeing, etc. It's true that sometimes Jesus wept at the world he saw around him, yet he went about his Father's business. What was this business of his Father? Could it be the same business God invited us to right at the beginning: To govern the world? Yet, as Jesus taught his disciples, if I want to govern, I shouldn't lord it over others, I lead by serving.

I love that in Genesis, God looks at man being alone, and thinks, this isn't good, he needs a woman. It's the only problem that precludes the entrance of sin. So God changes what he sees. I'm constantly looking at things and imagining change. I want to rotate my garage 90 degrees and put a rooftop patio on it for example. The cost of implementing change is deceptively large. I still have a lot of other incomplete changes to finish. For all change I must consider, is it worth it? Don't let me be a coward though. Don't ever let me stop pushing through pain. No, instead the only question I must allow is:

Which changes are worth their cost?

I'm done school. I'm done that change.

My sister asked how I would celebrate. I visited friends without regard for the next day's tasks. I rested for a weekend. I reread a favourite novel. I took walks with my wife in the sunshine. I celebrated Easter with friends and family. I ate cheesecake and catered salmon for Sherry's work potluck. I wrote political parties emails. I avoided organizing my income taxes today to think and write this. I will take a day tomorrow to go learn how to shade and finish my final project desk & printer stand that Jason is buying from me.

To be done school feels underwhelming. The change isn't done. I'm receiving a carpentry ticket that says I'm competent at a grand list of skills. If only it were true. So I must keep working to make it true. I'd love to begin learning how to do finishing work, but I still have a great many changes that I've begun on my house that require a lot more work to complete, and a lot more money to pay for. I need a part time job, but how do you come by one of those? Friends it seems is the answer, bent on changes of their own. So I will join Jason for four months roofing to check off one of my purported skills as real. I'll only be working four days a week gaining an extra day to do work at home.

Oh Canada, how I would change how you are governed. I imagine having two sectors of federal government. One sector would have no party affiliations. Representatives would be elected and their job would be to present changes to their region's citizens. These are the pros, the cons, the costs. Then they would listen to those informed citizens' feedback, and either vote accordingly or bring any necessary or beneficial revisions back to the other sector of government. This other sector of government would be party based, however the parties would be voted on by total population, not region. The parties would clearly represent value priorities and voters would choose these parties to match their own. The parties would then collaborate to create ideas for change without the crippling distraction of power, because parties wouldn't be deciding anything, the citizens would.

Maybe some day we will open our eyes and demand valuable effective democracy in place of the colonial elitist disgrace we've inherited.

It's Not Easy Being Green, Like A Tortoise Not A Frog

This morning began well. Actually, the evening prior went well. I had an inkling of things unwell last week with a few of the kids from Jesus Loves You Society (the family centre I volunteer at) at the end of the night, but didn't do anything about it. So last night I had a, "Here we go God," moment before going in. Things did continue, but thankfully I was able to talk to the two kids. I saw a bit of a miracle. It is very difficult to talk to kids who do not want to talk. Kids not wanting to talk when you want them to talk is very common (and vice verse of course). No, instead, they opened up, and I could empathize with their frustrations. But what do you do with your frustrations? The first kid actually answered very quickly, "Calm down." It wasn't a question. He wasn't feeding me the right answer. He wasn't dodging the issue. I was so impressed. But wait, then I asked the how question. He said that whipping a ball at the wall for a few minutes is a good way for him to calm down. The floor hockey ball. And it's alright if I get you to do that off to the side when I can see you're frustrated? Yes.

I like him. Not because of this, as impressive as his response was. I think he's talented, energetic, and beyond positive attributes, I think he's good, at the core, in some strange in-obvious way.

I talked to the other kid and had to explain a few things about making comments that point out others' (deemed) faults while they're frustrated - that's never helpful, leave that decision up to the leaders, instead, look for ways to encourage other kids. He too was game. Anyways, it felt resolved, or at least resolved for the night, and a step in the right direction.

Then a friend from house church called and it was good to be called (and invited out for a show) and to catch up. And I loved hanging out with other friends and seeing the Moms and eating delicious chicken curry. Good times.

Back to today. I woke up earlier to make sure I had enough time with the weather to get to school on time. I listened to really cool music on 88.1 AVR3 FM. This week is practical shop exam week. We build desks that get graded by the apprenticeship board people as opposed to our instructors. We have to get 70%+ on the desks to get our tickets. The test is time-limited. I'm not very good at being time-limited. On almost every project I've worked on in Shop at SAIT, it's taken me longer. Some people have really good skills, and whip perfect projects off in no time. Other people don't care about quality and are only concerned with whipping projects off in no time. Then there are other people who may not have background skills, but work their way through in the allotted time, and produce a pretty good product. I am almost in that category, except that I'm the slowest, and don't often fulfill the allotted time part of that scenario. So on our largest project where we get two weeks' worth of shop time in one week, every day I get further and further and further behind.

Tomorrow I will hit the deadline, and then every 30 minutes I will be penalized to a maximum penalty of 3 hours. I was doing some estimating, and it will likely take me all 3 of those hours to finish. Which means I should stay all day and fix up any small errors I can so as to prevent losing marks to make up for the penalty lost marks. My instructor says that we can stay until 5, but after that, we should find a new trade...

It's the story of my SAIT education. We have clocked quotas we must fulfill of time at school which adds up to 265 hours per term. I usually rack up an extra 100 each time. That's like doing 11 weeks instead of 8 of school.

Knowing you're quite far behind means that in the midst of the pressured production, mistakes are very frustrating. But like the kids, what are my options? I'm not sure, but my habitual routine has become to angrily curse the subject of my mistake, apologize to God, and gain lots of extra experience by doing so many things twice, or discover interesting ways of repairing things. Today in my stress I started singing songs to myself, which helped - I think. I didn't actually sing Kermit's song. Now I must go study some more - exams are coming exams are coming.

Letter to the Vice President

Dear Dr. Gordon Nixon,

I wish to begin by expressing my gratitude at your enthusiasm towards listening to students. It is a fine mark of humility and wisdom. As I exit SAIT's Carpentry apprenticeship program, I leave these thoughts:

There are more than a few fantastic instructors in the program. Special commendations go to Randy Jones, Stacy Jessamine, and Dan Weinerte. I didn't even get to be in a class with Stacy or Dan, other than a few shop classes, but their enthusiasm, knowledge and assistance were plainly evident. This extended outside of shop class, and beyond just the students in their classes too. Randy, though the newest instructor (that I am aware of) seemed to possess the greatest ability to understand the students' perspectives. He used this to tailor his effective teaching methods, and also to focus on areas of learning that were emphasized by the course. An example of an effective practice was to have weekly shop quizzes. He would emphasize points during shop, and sure enough, come Friday you needed to remember them. When being exposed to so many new things all at once, it is easy for students to be overwhelmed. These quizzes helped to keep knowledge from slipping away. He had very good communication and demonstration skills, making sure the class understood how and what they were doing. He used the whiteboard every day, writing down the day's objectives and steps, keeping large projects broken down into manageable tasks. Then after everyone started working he would wander around, watching students, offering suggestions or tips, asking questions and answering them. He was the most prolific lecture provider, going above and beyond to ensure students understood the course material; helpfully suggesting which things to study thoroughly and which things only needed a basic grasp of the concept. I really appreciated this since first year in particular had the greatest module load with the greatest amount of small details to remember. I appreciated each of my subsequent instructors, Garry Gierke, Ron Bolokski, and Albert Goodeve as well. I didn't take these good instructors for granted, as there were other instructors who seemed to regard students as inconveniences, or insufferable for their lack of experience, and were intimidating to seek help from.

If I might offer some constructive criticism, it would fall upon the TLM system. Bluntly, SAIT as an educational institution, should be ashamed of the disgraceful quality it tolerates for a program they sell to other schools. To begin with, the english composition skills used to write some of the questions are very poor. This could be solved if the questions were screened by editors first, but apparently they are not. Does SAIT offer any english classes? Perhaps they could use the TLM questions as coursework for students. Otherwise someone should be hired immediately to begin bringing the system up to at least the Grade 9 level that apprenticeship students are expected to possess before entering the program.

It is not just the poor spelling, grammar, and incoherence present in questions that is a problem. The calibre of the questions is disappointing. The transition from writing SAIT post-tests to writing provincial exams can be jarring. I would describe the great majority of SAIT questions as short. What is the name of a tool with a wooden handle and a metal top? Is it a hammer, a truck, a circular saw, or a trowel? Now suppose, I was unfamiliar with hammers. Great, now I will remember that a hammer has a wooden handle and a metal top. What is it used for? When wouldn't I want to use it? If a peculiar problem arose, should I use my hammer or another tool? The module may have had 3 pages written on the subject, but I will see only this question, or the same question, slightly reworded. To contrast, here is a Red Seal practice exam question: On an intersecting roof, what happens to the design length of the given rafters if the minor span is increased?

I'll save you the four options because you may not be a carpenter and may not appreciate them, but the reason this is a more challenging question is because this specific point wasn't even covered in a module and it certainly wasn't approached in the TLM. The concept behind it was covered in the module, but perhaps all that the TLM was concerned about was copying a graphic image from the module and asking students to correctly identify which rafter was which. Many of the SAIT final exams tried to include some complex questions such as this, but the TLM does not adequately prepare students for them. It must start including complex questions if it is to teach students to think independently, and extend basic facts or concepts into practice.

The TLM question bank isn't big enough. Students complete one post test per module. Post tests are an average of 4 pages long and include about 20 questions. Students then have the option of completing 3 more re-tests for practice. In these retests, about 4 in 5 questions are duplicates of questions already seen. The student had to succeed in the first post-test with a minimum score of 80% in order to move forward and be able to write a retest. If they were already able to achieve this success, why are they wasting paper printing off the same questions again and again? Many of them are not. They know that a great majority of the questions are repeated and don't even bother to attempt them. When they do attempt them, it is very difficult to stay mentally engaged, because if you already know the answer, you just skim through questions mindlessly. I stop contemplating the subject material; I'm just feeding the computer the answers it needs. Having more questions available, allows broader practice, which results in better learning.

In all four years of my attendance, I found question after question with important errors in them. I would go and point them out to instructors who were shocked because the questions were often old and no one had asked them about it before. Why? Because the students trust the TLM, and assume that they themselves are at fault, or they just don't care. Well that's fine for the students who understand and don't care - they haven't lost anything - but the students who just accepted the mistakes and moved on have learned lies. In addition to questions that were plainly wrong, there were questions that listed valid choices within the four options but marked them wrong. Sometimes this is done on purpose to emphasize a best answer as opposed to a satisfactory one. That's fine. However, I ran into many questions that had these kinds of mistakes included because of an unfamiliarity with the course content! I would hope that a lot of these errors could be traced back to an old version of a module (modules also contain mistakes). Even if they are a result of module updating, someone needs to keep abreast of module revisions and update TLM questions accordingly. Currently, it is left up to students to notice these mistakes and bring them to the attention of instructors. Instructors are very busy with other tasks and don't get around to fixing questions very quickly. Students are also very busy and generally don't sacrifice their own learning time to have questions revised, especially since they are so accustomed to seeing errors or poorly worded questions. This is sad, because it is the students who are the ones who have a good perspective on whether a question was 'good' or 'bad' (whether it was fair, helpful, and clear).

Some questions just aren't fair. For post-tests, that's fine. They become a learning opportunity. But for exams they become a problem. Instructors don't always realize that the questions aren't fair because they have seen all of the course. Instructors should have background experience to augment their understanding of the content. Instructors have had the very useful learning step of teaching the content. Finally, and most detrimentally, instructors are familiar with the question itself and associate it with the answer that leads to a check mark by the computer. Students don't have these advantages. It is an awful thing to penalize students' grades because they didn't know something that they weren't taught. That's not to say that the exams are extremely difficult and riddled with unfair questions. Some, in fact, could be passed by any twelve-year-old. It's not a bad thing for lots of students to score well if they really know the course content. It is a bad thing if the system has to fully rely on multiple choice testing, complete with questions rigged with (at least) two give-away impossibilities to push students through. Instead of engineering the exams to pass the students, how about addressing the root issue of inadequate teaching?

I would recommend that someone (if not a team) is hired to repair, expand & develop, and manage the question banks full time. Students would be informed, aware and welcomed to bring errors to attention. Please let me know how you intend to address this problem.

I thoroughly appreciated every minute of shop time. Practical, hands-on learning is very valuable, and often leaves a much greater impression than words on a page. If I could suggest anything it would be to increase shop time. If the TLM was improved, I believe students wouldn't need as much help dealing with TLM questions. This could free up instructors' time to spend longer periods in shop. The course content that is covered in shop is always the best understood. Unfortunately, much of the core content isn't afforded time for shop learning. Figuring out a way of expanding shop learning would be of monumental significance in the education of students. I succeeded well in school, often top of my class. Yet I look at the Red Seal list of skills that I am expected to be competent in, yes even able to accomplish unsupervised and I am dismayed. There is a valuable module called Job Coaching that I was privileged to read (even though all the TLM questions made a mockery of its importance). It simplified the learning process down to an instructor showing, then telling a student what and how to do a task. Then having the student do the task (showing the instructor) and then getting the chance to tell the instructor whether they had any difficulties or ask any questions. This is actually a great learning model. It's too bad that it isn't always used by instructors in shop. It could be. It is also the reason learning in shop is so valuable over the TLM. When are students given the chance to respond to TLM questions? Who is watching students flounder their way through questions guessed at, able to offer tips or constructive criticism?

Even field trips (which were rumoured once or twice but never occurred) would be helpful in giving students a visual memory to associate with a complex learning subject that they have no experience with. While the apprenticeship program is designed to have students learn skills from their employers (and checked neatly off in their blue book), carpentry has become a trade full of niches. For my ideal education, I would need to quit my job every 3 months to go learn a different aspect of carpentry. Residential cribbing, framing, stairs, cabinets, finishing, roofing, siding, ceilings, sidewalks. Then commercial concrete work and the myriad of different tasks you could be assigned (and then left on). Yes after six years of residential framing, I'm a little bit bored, and will go seek new experiences elsewhere, but it's not even close to realistic to expect students to gain experience in all or even most areas of carpentry on the job site. Learning in school is therefore critical, and isn't treated as such.

I will be embarrassed to seek work and be expected to possess the skills associated with my trade that I don't have. I'm sure that I will receive high 90s yet again in my course work at SAIT and even on my provincial and red seal examination, and it will all be very hollow since they obviously aren't very effective in revealing the success of the course's stated purpose.

That's big picture gloom, and hey, maybe you are spectacularly innovative, influential, and surrounded with more such talented people, who will all improve that scene.

Coming back to easier suggestions to fulfill, what if shop time was increased, and students actually got to practice individual skills a little bit more, before throwing them into larger projects. The confidence would be wonderful, and the possessed longevity of the skill lengthened. We receive printed shop books that hint at such ideas, but they were never used, with the exception of the sawhorse book (although that could have been an accident because the instructor was a substitute that week). Maybe we could even see and work with concrete since it's given hefty weighting as far as course content goes. HA! Hefty weighting! Sorry, I was just worried that you were tired. Thanks again for caring enough to ask. I wanted to oblige.

That's right - my child ain't got no fool for a papa - just a dork

So, I climb into bed last night, early, because I wanted to get an extra good night's rest before an exam today. Sherry innocently inquires, "Do you remember the riddle from Rook [by Stephen James]?"

Umm...

"You know, two men have just completed a robbery. The first man says that he doesn't have enough because if he had to give one stack of his money to the other man, then he would only have half as much. The second man replied, no I don't have enough because I did all the planning and if I gave you one of my stacks, we'd both have the same amount."

My head instinctively said 3 and 2, but obviously that failed. Then I tried a few more things out loud, until Sherry gave up. Then I lay there, thinking about how algebra could solve this. I only needed my graphing calculator from ten years ago and time to relearn how to do algebra. Yes, yes, the equations would be...

I kept lying there and it was driving me mad, so I got up, threw on some pyjamas and headed downstairs to at least write my mental formulas down. Then I couldn't help but google graphing calculators, but that was frustrating because I couldn't quite remember how to use them. So after trying to simplify my equations for awhile, I finally gave up and went back to bed. At least I had something written down to come back to the next day. I only got six hours of sleep, but at least I could sleep.

When I woke up, I knew immediately that I had made a mistake and had doubled the wrong side of one of the equations, and so I grabbed a banana and quickly retried my equation, but they were still horribly complicated and I was sure I must be doing it wrong, because why would a riddle involve this kind of wicked calculus?

After school, I decided to cheat and google key phrases of the riddle, assuming that it wasn't original in the book. Sure enough there was a variation with marbles. Two people had posted replies on the website, and hadn't solved it. The marble version could involve much simpler equations than mine, because mine had to take into account the possibility that the stacks of money weren't necessarily equal.

One of the posted replies had used algebra to discover that negative numbers worked (I'd already tried that the night before but is obviously illogical and not worthy of making a riddle for). But then I perceived that the negative numbers they'd used, worked, as positive. How foolish that they hadn't seen this! Then I noticed that they too had doubled the wrong side of one of their equations and that was their mistake. So I posted the correction, and the answer, and came here to drive all the rest of the world mad. The real riddle, is how I could pass this on to throngs, let alone anyone other than Lisa by writing this on my blog at this point.

I give that last sentence an F too.

Whatever Is Lovely

Someone asked me today if I regret starting my renovations. A very good question. My answer was no, I'm too stupid to regret it. But the pain it causes me...

I've been thinking about dead people lately. A song came on my ipod on Friday (Cannonball by Five Iron Frenzy), that a friend of mine liked, and I had never paid attention to the lyrics before. They were inspiring. Jono wanted to go to Iceland, and today I happened upon some photos that made me understand why. At first I was grieved that Jono wasn't the one to have taken the photos. And then I felt a friend, who reminded me that he had other things to show Jono. What beauty have you seen now friend?

Whatever is pure, lovely, admirable
true, honourable, right
excellent, and worthy of praise
Fix your thoughts on these.


Günter Salhofer

Video Friday

the violet burning from the violet burning on Vimeo.

Slightly different moods, and honestly, even though Nathan did a fabulous job editing one of these, how could he compete with a cow mascot head?

Decompression or Debrief?

I started to write a post, and then the timer went off for Sherry's pumpkin loaf. I ran upstairs, tested it, and it was finished. Just then my phone rang and it was a member of Dragonfly Cohousing. She was calling, she said, really just to chat and catch up. How were Sherry and I doing? We took a leave of absence back at the end of October because home reno deadlines were imminently looming. I would need November and December off for sure. Ha! Finish by December, such a comedian I was. In January and February, the renos continued and Sherry shared that she was pregnant, which was actually why she too had taken a leave of absence in November and December when her energy levels were endangered species. What about now? Well that subject didn't get jumped into right away. Instead, I chatted about how I'd worked 90 hours in the last two weeks, and had the inspection today even though I wasn't ready at all. The inspector was gracious though. He could tell I was ambitious and not the kind to leave my house only half covered in foam. So he credited me for a number of things that were not technically complete yet. He did still have to perform the blower door test and you can't doctor those. The results were not brilliant. I suspected that would be the case, but it was still disappointing. It was a frantic day though. The first project I set out to do was weatherstrip the attic accesses. Oh but what is this? This one is built backwards. I can't weatherstrip it at all. It may be useful to note that when we got the house you couldn't even access it, because they had built the closet shelving right into the attic access. So a simple, 15 minute job, became, a rip everything out, go build a new one, six hour plus job (someone might skeptically ask if it actually takes six hours to build an attic access, and my defensive answer is yes, in fact this one takes longer). And the inspector showed up an hour early, so was it finished? No. Oh well, let's acousti-seal and tack some poly for the blower door test. The inspector also required invoices for everything. Did I have those all prepared? Absolutely not. Am I very organized with my filing, making it easy to locate such things? Quite the opposite. So a tornado attacked my desk repeatedly and didn't succeed very well, at least at finding things for me, it did do a good job of making my desk look tornadoed. Sherry hates tornadoes. It's why she dreams that they're evil spirits and she has to pray in tongues to stop them. She did encourage me this morning to bask in God's presence, even in the attic.
Anyway, did I unload all of these details on my poor Cohousing friend? No. I did admit that I'm nervous about starting my last (and most challenging) segment of school on Monday, whilst still having so much incomplete in my renos. But hey, what's wrong with coming home for supper and then marching outside to work in the dark? I've become accustomed to it. I've also become accustomed to being re-ignited with courage working in daylight, There is no such thing as daylight while going to school.
My cohousing friend asked about Sherry and how she was doing, which I relayed. She asked how my Dad was doing, and me too, post-Mom. And yes eventually she asked what our position was regarding the Cohousing group. We have talked a little bit, here and there, and realistically, we're not financially viable. Cohousing can sometimes get financed by a developer (which still involves preliminary costs), but more often gets financed by the members. How? Savings, investments, or for us, since we don't have any of those responsible things, home-secured lines of credit. We don't even have one of those yet. We do have an unsecured line of credit and have racked it up good with my quest. With my quest taking much longer than anticipated, and being more difficult than expected, it will be a few months before it is vanquished. Even then, we'll have to get our house reassessed to see about getting a secured line. Really though, these renos don't immediately jack up our value beyond their cost. I also laid waste to our yard, and though we have good imaginations for how to make it beautiful, I prespent all of our money. There is also the undeniable fact that, we both love this home. We love how well laid out it is, and how bright it is, and its proximity to the park, and our friendly neighbours, and the crazy quest I have undertaken will some day be finished and then it will be super efficient and gorgeous too.
Anyway, I asked her how she was doing and got to hear about it. She brought up that even if we leave, we would still be more than welcome to come to social events, and I thought, yeah, that would be fun, because there are a lot of cool people in the group and it is weird to think about just severing relationships that have been built up. We could go visit them after it's built (they are rolling right along) and be a little bit jealous.
She also asked if we needed any help. She said obviously she isn't construction proficient, but do we need anything else? I could actually say no. I have felt very supported by my housemates these past couple of months. Whether it's Jason distracting me with board games or a field trip to the gym, or when he's ripping up half my roof to make sure it's actually done right this time. Daniel has pitched in to give me a hand hauling foam bundles, cleaning up, and other odd jobs. He's also nurtured my plants during my neglect. Megan has gone and slept in the basement while working nightshifts because I'm making a racket right outside her room, and kept telling me it was fine. Faye gets home from a very long shift at work, and then a long commute, and still listens to me talk about my day. Sherry, even though her back has been spasming and giving her all kinds of grief for weeks, has been strategically treating me. I'll randomly wish out loud for rhubarb cobbler, or pumpkin bread, or steak, and they'll appear. In fact, every one of them has been very generous in sharing their cooking with me, and encouraging and supporting me. I feel compelled to go write them thank you cards.
And now I feel like a celebrity at an awards show having the sudden urge to thank everyone I can, like my Dad and my friends who came over to help. This will get ridiculous quick. I'll also be like musicians in CD liners, because I want to say, "Thanks God." Thanks for someone calling to ask me how I was doing, when I needed to contemplate how I was doing. I needed to decompress, by debriefing. Thanks for giving me loving family and friends. Thanks for a gracious inspector. Thanks for pumpkin bread and Thai soup and salad tonight. Thanks for working much harder than I do, with much greater skill, knowledge, wisdom, and moral decency. May you be successful in your endeavours in all the countries around the Mediterranean. I'm not there traveling this year, but there's certainly a lot going on that could use your help.

"God's Grace Is Sufficient For You"

My break yesterday was not enough to save my garage. Although several times it got so bad as to include tears. When I had just two weeks left before my inspection deadline, I did some timeline estimating and knew I had until Wednesday to have my doors finished and the chimney chase installed. Instead I found myself cleaning stain off all day and couldn't even finish that, and no the chimney chase is not built. The doors easily took more than twice what they were supposed to, in a period of time that also included an auto accident one block away from the door hardware store (I slid 40 feet going 10 km/hr on a road doubling as a skating rink into a mini-van). And in the end, I still couldn't get them to look good. And so I scrubbed two weeks of work, rags, brushes, stain, money, and heart and couldn't even finish that. It was over; I would have to install them as is, to stare at me and taunt my disgrace with their ugliness, and tease me about how I'd have to spend a pile more money to have someone do it properly in the summer. Sherry called me to see how I was doing and I could barely talk. So I packed it in, my fingers aching and my morale shattered. I came in and showered and came to bed. Sherry remarked that I had a frustrating day, and I still couldn't talk. She said she had a frustrating day too. We could be frustrated together. But she didn't look frustrated. She looked very powerfully willing me to strongly know how much she loved me. She kissed me to underscore this, and said, "God's grace is sufficient for you." I tried to ask what happened to her. She told me about how her back was miserable. But still she looked at me with love. So I went to sleep crying, but it was very different from the crying in the garage.

Today had its share of setbacks. The hardware was wrong on one of the doors, so I had to drive to the NE to replace them, but at least they had the replacements in stock. I realized that the doors needed to have gains chiseled into them for the hardware, and I hadn't allowed time for this, and didn't even have a set of chisels. After I got the chisels, and started working on the doors, I realized the finish of the hinges didn't match the nicer finish of the hardware, and it looked stupid. The hardware came with better parts than some of the default stuff the door came with (and would thus match the hardware), but it wouldn't work because of how the jamb had been cut into for the default parts. While chiseling the gains, the fiberglass chipped away in an ugly fashion.

And none of this really phased me.

God's grace is sufficient for me.

I haven't spent a lot of time mulling over what that means, but I can feel it.

We had friends bring us over dinner and share it with us - yes, really - and one of our friends was telling us about a dream she'd had where their family had a blog recounting how they wasted time. Instead of choosing the two popular approaches of either being a workaholic, or zoning out and doing something mindless, what else can you do with wasted time?

I wasted time failing. It won't be the last. Still, God's grace is sufficient for me.

Bonus
On Sunday, a question was posed: Have you ever asked godly people for criticism?
The background was that godly people are one of five basic ways to hear God speaking - but when do we ask for it?
It resparked a thought that had arisen earlier. I lost a considerable amount of money in an investment that ended up being a ponzi scheme, after reading an investment book (that in fairness, would have frowned on this), having a meeting with three financial advisors (I liked one of them better than the one I went with), and calling three people to ask about their experience with the advisor I did go with (they didn't have anything bad to say). Why? Because Sherry and I prayed about it, and that's where I felt like God was leading. Why didn't I call three people and ask them to pray about it with us? Or even, yes, ask for criticism? Might it have come up that way if I'd been thinking better? Actually Nolan, no, this is a bad idea - you should pray about it some more.
I don't know, but I am open to criticism, and hope I'll remember to start asking for it.

A Scream

I don't have time for any wisdom, or light-heartedness, but right now my soul is a bit crushed from foolish ambitions run afoul. From spending all day removing stain from just the sidelight of the front door with two doors remaining. Yes, if I stay up until midnight, maybe I'll be back to square one, well not quite - It's not as nice as square one. But back at square one the first I was full of hope and dreaming of art, but with no where near the skill or experience to be screwing around with art, especially with so much other work to do and a pressing deadline. Yes, an utter fool, and it hurts. Perhaps this break and admission will save my garage from more angry swearing.

What happens when your favourite colour changes?

For the past week, I have been working on house plants, using the top of the kitchen table. We have had problems with the never-ending nuisance of gnats, or fruit flies, or whatever the tiny flying bugs are that won't give up and perish completely. So I purchased some sand and placed a layer on the top of all of the house plants. This is supposed to prevent the pesky insects from making soil their base of operations. While doing this I decided to upgrade the housing for a few plants who had outgrown their pots. I should mention at this point that I am a certified horticultural aficionado, and my reasoning is above reproach when deciding such things. How dare you even question my intuitive plant-care genius. Of course you can repot in the middle of winter.

This morning I decided to clean up the mess, but wait, I still have one empty pot, and that green plant over there looks like it needs a larger pot (especially since Sherry said it didn't). The empty pot wasn't any larger, but I could split the plant and it would effectively double the available soil. Daniel was around and informed me that when he had previously tried to pierce the dirt with his soil sensor, it was like trying to lance granite. Yes, yes, the doctor of all things growing realizes that it must be terribly root-bound and desperate for a change in abode.

I'll just grab this butter knife and stab around in the soil a great deal - to loosen things up. It's still stuck! I'll have to saw through the roots here and stab around some more around the perimeter, there we go. Good heavens, what kind of plant is this? These roots look like a freakish mix of potato tentacles and carrots. But it's such a small little grassy plant. What is it doing with all these roots! It will never fit in these two pots. Its needs are far more excessive than I'd imagined. So to Walmart I go to thriftily save my surgeoned friend.

Walmart is conveniently next to Rona in the South. Rona conveniently has a garden centre. I conveniently have 3 very small pots that would be remiss if I didn't find them tenants. I'll just check to grab a few interesting specimens to add to my oxygen amassing force. What's this, a giant truckload sale! Just look at all these giant plants, all so cheap! But I must have them! I decided to speak to a very knowledgeable staff member (she knew more than I did!), who enlightened me about things like how when I replanted my cacti in a tall pot I was an idiot because cactus roots stay shallow - and yes it is apparently stupid to repot anything in the middle of winter (not to mention my terribly claustrophobic flowering grass plant was probably happy to have such small conditions). But is she smart enough to go to Walmart to save a few dollars on pots? I don't know, I didn't feel it an appropriate subject to bring up. But I did do just that. Since the pots, and the plants were so cheap, I picked up the 3 mini plants to fill my mini pots, my two larger pots for the cause of this whole trip, plus 5 other plants, because well, they're green.

Even though I had to proceed to setting a record for the most time spent trying to checkout of a store ever, my mood wasn't dampened. It was also exciting to try and fit all those plants into the cab of my truck with me (they look MUCH bigger when they're wrapped in paper). I was just glad I could still see my side mirror and do shoulder checks if I looked at very specific angles. I got home and made my mess on the kitchen table worse. I didn't finish them all before needing to rush off to meet Sherry for the Mid-wife appointment. But you know what? Even though I thought Sherry would be a little peeved that I was spending time and money on my distracting addiction instead of working on our home renos, she smiled at me and was supportive (and explained that the grassy thing is a spider plant). There have been many moments like that. It's like she read in a book somewhere that one of the many secrets to confusing your husband and having a great marriage is to roll with his illogical moments and love him anyway. I try to return the favour.

I finished repotting the new plants when we got home and cleaned up the table at last while Sherry made a most delicious beef broccoli & boc choy stir-fry. Then I remembered that someone asked me what my favourite colour was yesterday, and I suddenly became unsure of something that has been unchanging since as long as I can remember. Somewhere, somehow, someway, sometime, something metamorphosed. So my blog changed colour schemes to celebrate the accurate me. Green is the new blue. Plants are the new candy. Children are so attracted to sweets, but me, I grow more and more unimpressed by sugar. But get me into a greenhouse and I want it all.

Look it's distraction, or was it self-preservation?

Today, I started strong. I got a fire going again and immediately went to work on taking measurements for my problematic bay window. It was created wrong, and VERY thankfully seems like it will be recreated. Then I enjoyed some toasted open face mexican salmon sandwiches. Instead of going to get more wood screws (which has been put off at least three days now), I allowed myself to get distracted after this and set out to search out a whimsy I'd had while visiting Sherry's Aunt & Uncle. HerUncle had poured washed pebbles for his bathroom floor and then filled the gaps/coated them with epoxy and it was kind of cool. It somehow reminded me of being in Costa Rica and visiting a hot springs spa where all the pools were madewith lava rock. It seems like it should be inhospitable tostand on, but isn't. So I did a little investigating online into whether I could build a bathtub like this. It turns out you can, but it is not recommended. First you should be very experienced in tile-setting and second even then it is challenging, time-consuming, relatively costly and requires perfection of the many water-proofing details. Probably an idea not to pursue. So instead I looked at Japanese wooden tubs which are beautiful and artistic and also very costly - except for a note on one website that recommended, "or find a trusted, very experienced carpenter to build one for you." This shouldn't have encouraged me as I am not very experienced in fine carpentry but come on, I can't build a box? A box that needs 16 coats of finish to make it waterproof, but still. Reminders ran through my mind several times during this lapse of fancy, that I am not renovating my bathroom right now, but I didn't listen, until 2:00.

It was crunch time and I needed to see some production out of myself before Sherry's first Christmas present date. So I opted for the no-screws-required kitchen window, and treated myself to music via ipod whilst doing it (and passersby to singing). The very creative renovators who redid our kitchen before it was our kitchen decided that the window didn't need superlative trim - it needed cabinets built right to the edge of the glass and backsplash tile likewise on the bottom. All mostly fine and dandy, until I replace the window. Lucky for me I'm also very creative and realized, oh I can just reduce the window size and remedy this problem, after I'd already ordered the window the same size as the original. So the new remedy became everyone loves windows that are flush with cabinets and haveno trim and let's just knock that row of tiles right off. Who needs insulation on the sides of windows when some crazy person is adding 6" of rigid foam on top of this anyway?

I didn't let any of this phase me by the way, I didn't even care because what could I do about it now? I was also distracted by the fact that my fingers were going numb and I was only half-way through this little task. 3/4 of the way through my fingers were screaming at me. The last nail bent and received a severe tongue-lashing because it delayed me getting back inside the house to my fire where my hands would take 15 minutes to mostly thaw out. Back at the half-way point I was still thinking happy thoughts like - it's OK Nolan keep going, think of friends who need prayer, pressing through difficult things is a good way to pray for others to do the same. The last quarter brought me back to animalistic memories of being at work and being so cold that my mind begins to flip out and hate me for even existing. Are there El-Paca gloves with some sort of protective shell that still give your fingers great dexterity? No there are not, which is an ancient sign from God that unless you're already an Eskimo, you shouldn't try to become one.

Thank you Jesus for thinking of me when you asked me to stay and keep framing even though I knew what I was getting myself into starting my first day in a blizzard and going home early because it was close to minus 30. I'm sorry that Kyle & Terry don't know you yet, or really, any of the other guys I worked with in the last six years. That's why I stayed. I'm sorry I'm not super-Christian yet. I really want to leave and not frame anymore, and I don't feel like I need to. I know I listen less than I used to but need to do some more of that before concluding anything.

I'm glad I got to do something that challenged me, and let me be outside and tactile. I'm glad I got to meet some great people you love. I'm glad that you still think of me and will ask more things.

Thinking Alone In The Best (Sunniest) Room In The House

I have been in BC since Boxing (Sun)day, and yesterday Sherry and I drove to Walmart to pick up some things for her Mom and then to stop in and visit her Aunt&Uncle. But I was grumpy. I was glad to get out of the house and see some sunshine, but I was still inside a car, and then dreadfully, in a Walmart. Stores are obnoxious. Later, while we were visiting, her Aunt asked if I was going crazy yet from not doing anything, and I said yes. She smiled and said that's how Sherry's Uncle gets when they're on holidays, and really how he's been the past two years dealing with shoulder injuries. Yes I like doing things. Even though there are a lot of things that could be done around the house here, I feel like there are more pressing personal things that need addressed. But they're not being addressed. And I don't like them floating around.

We've thought of moving here for a year. Come out while Sherry's on maternity, and see more of her family. And my feelings aren't easily described regarding those thoughts. There are those pesky practical details like a home we own that has mortgage payments, and would my sister and her husband stay there? Would they be lonely on their own? I might be lonely if they were on their own. If we come out here what will that mean for work? I'd have to find something temporary back in Calgary after school for a few months until we came out, and then I'd have to find something temporary here. Temporary things don't usually pay very well, and there are those aforementioned pesky practical details. But who knows? I could end up with the best job of my life.

I have always lived in Calgary. The longest I've left is two months. Even though I enjoy travelling, and new places, residing is completely different. Residing anywhere will be completely different come June with the addition of a baby. But why only change that when you can pack up and move to the other side of the mountains too. What will that feel like to leave family and friends, work, church, and even a little bit of culture behind?

"I'll sail away, I'll sail away, forever and forever." It's an Ace Troubleshooter song line that has been floating through my head this week, reminding me of a prophecy that had me curious about this question before I even started dating Sherry.
A picture of an exploratory voyage. Except that the concept was music. I would have to sail away and leave, like an explorer to find my own sound. Music. Playing music is a forgotten fog.
More than that though, I know faith is known for uprooting people. Sherry even has friends in BC, and it would be nice to see them more except that they are leaving too. A family of six off to become missionaries in Africa, and Pam perhaps to school in California.
I suspect it's the uprooting I don't like the thought of. I can deal with change. Quickly in fact. Very soon it feels routine. But it's the temporary nature that is so unsettling. When you are dating, you have to try and make things happen, you have to woe. While you do this you must be fearless or you will fail. You won't be yourself, you will be false if you lack confidence. It's tricky though because you love, and cherish, and the thought of loss is frightening. If you make it through, marriage is a beautiful thing, because you have committed to each other and there is no longer even a question of loss by rejection (in my world) - and it becomes simpler to be free as yourself, even though you no longer live for yourself.
Places are like that too. If you know you will be, or might be leaving, you lose the moment. You're looking ahead, you're already disengaging. When we had the 'urban monastery' house of nine people together, I had a much harder time with the second year than the first. It seemed backwards. The first year was strange and such a steep learning curve of a challenge for getting along with all these other people and completely changing the way you get up and make it through your day. Trial and error, pain and failure, disappointment or not, I pressed on, and loved it, because we succeeded in the moments and there was joy. In the second year, so many had plans for moving on, and the moments disappeared.
How do you move somewhere if you know you'll be leaving soon? What meaning will all of the painful adjusting have if you are already planning to go again?
How can you even have trust?
I want to move in, and I will feel the need to change my environment. Clutter and darkness be damned. I want space and colour and light. I want fresh air from living plants, not cigarette smoke. I want to cook in the kitchen without worrying about waking someone sleeping in the chair across from me or looking at a television that thinks it should never be turned off. I want to cook things my way, if I'm the one cooking, not how you like to do it, and I don't want to eat your cooking if you're going to use ingredients I don't like.
Which is fine, I can kill all of this selfishness and work things out, if we can trust each other. But if I'm coming into their home, their territory, and want to make any changes. Changes have cost, have consequences. And how can those be welcomed if we will leave them in the end.
Even more frightening - how do we leave them in the end? How do you choose where to live? Because there will be that question. Why go back? Why are you leaving us?
Well...
Um...
My family is there.
But Sherry's family is here.
How do you decide which family your children will grow up being around. (Which leads me to another tangent about how you take the family you're closest to for granted and make more deliberate effort to spend time with the family you don't live near and only see occasionally).
I've thought about the question of place before and always thought - I don't move flippantly. If I have no reason to move, then why? If God asked me to. That's why. That would be a good reason to choose.
I've got two months to do home renos, and if I'm lucky, I'll finish early and get to spend some time in prayer and fasting, like six years ago.

Becoming

Becoming a gardener: I sometimes water my plants once a week, and I try to fill the watering can with water a day before so the fluoride/chlorine/etc can off-gas. I'm not growing anything. But I do have a mountain of peat-moss waiting to go into yet-to-be-built raised garden beds, and aspirations of getting a couple of truckloads of cheap mushroom manure. Spring will come only too soon.

Becoming strong: I did go rock-climbing with Sherry, Ian and Zachary once this fall, in the rain no less. And I went running, yes actual running where your lungs ignite, with Jason once. It was followed by four very long sets of planks (yes I'm as strong as my girls' soccer team workout training goal from 8 years ago!) and some drop-dead from exhaustion really quick faux-cycling ab decimation. Oh right but that was just once.

Remembering how to pray: Failing marvelously. I read Too Busy Not To Pray by [Bill Hybels perhaps?], back in the summer and listened to a number of good sermons by Billings Vineyard. Anyway, both inspired and assisted me in praying more, for a little while... Having my Mom decline with cancer was also motivating to pray, even having her die led me to step out in praying for her to rise from the dead with more faith than I have ever had before. She didn't rise though, but that's not why my praying has dropped off. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I'm 'too busy'. Let's come back to this later.

Listening for and to God each day: As marvelous as above.

Becoming handy, creative and constructive: I was contemplating life while driving home late a few weeks ago after a Cohousing meeting and I decided that I am addicted to complexity. This addiction has gotten me into debt, both literally, and in amounts of obligatory work I am buried beneath. I am painfully, and expensively, and slowly gaining skill and experience, probably depression more than confidence, and my artistic envisioning side is bruised but very alive. A better approach might have been to switch careers and learn these things with other people, while getting paid, but that was taking too long and would have been too easy, which wouldn't allow me to indulge in my addiction.

Being social: Not enough to feel alive. I still say yes to things, because otherwise I might disappear, so I went to Connor's birthday party, and went to our neighbour's son's birthday party, and a coming home party for our neighbour's parents. But it's probably a bad sign when I start thinking things like, what's the big deal with death any way? So many people in my life might as well be dead for how much I see them (do you see the selfish patterns of the world revolving around me in this thought?) I still measure friends by how many phone calls and subsequent visits I get, and that means I have close to none. Instead of calling people on my own, I put in 9-10 hour days at school trying for perfection, come home and deal with home renos badly in the no-remaining daylight and cold, and try to pitch in with cooking, or at least making breakfast plus smoothies for my pregnant wife. How could my artistic side ever wane when God does awesome art like babies inside women?

Scripture speaking: It has. It's just hard to remember because my Mom died one month ago today, and it's been quiet since.

I remember telling Sherry and Andy that it was incredible how much support our family had with my Mom. But I remember last year when Trevor's Mom died, I just called him and came over to be there. So I helped sort through photos for a slideshow and got to give Trevor a hug of course. I got lots of emails saying, if you need anything let us know. Which is nice, but not what I needed. I needed people calling and coming over. So Andy took me out mini-golfing and bought me lunch. Nice huh? At my Mom's funeral, after the service, the family walked around the building to avoid the crowds and had first dibs at the snacks, which is all very perfunctory but I skipped the snacks and went straight back for the crowds, and skipped hand shakes and gave everyone hugs.

With renos practically going backwards and no offers of help except from my Dad now and then, I feel like quitting Cohousing, which feels like betrayal to me. I don't have time or energy for it now, but I like those people and Cohousing itself is a solution for so much of what's wrong with me right now.

I'm wait-listed for back-to-back school terms. I'm 5th in line and apparently that means I have a reasonable chance of getting in as a result of people over-spending during Christmas and dropping out to work it off. I'm not sure I necessarily care either way. If I can find some work doing finishing for those two months I'd make some money and learn something new and have a bit of a schedule switch which is always refreshing.

OK back to work. I must go cut a hole in my ceiling so that I can access the piping to my hose-bib (outdoor faucet), which while extending to prep for adding the foam, I snapped off. So stupid. My Dad called a plumber who he used to work with at Nortel who said he'd come by and look at it if I cut a hole in my ceiling. I had to snap it off though. Otherwise it would have been less complicated. I just can't get enough.

What do I want to become

So, my friend Kirk brought up that our house church could actually start to progress with some of the ideas we had started to throw around about church. Right...

House church has been kind of drifting too (I had a picture of our church with a line from a Matt Good song: "I'm just a boat on the ocean, I'm just a ship lost at sea." with the missing, "wind of the spirit fill the sails of my soul, send us on Lord."

My craving, as far as learning at church goes, is to pick a few things, say four each year, and go deep with them. Come at them from different angles. And please spare me weekly, or even biweekly long lectures. They don't teach me, they asleep me. I need interaction, and most importantly I need action. It needs to become practical quickly. And then we need to practice. And practice some more. And keep practicing until it's normal. Until it's routine. Until it's unstoppable and won't fade away.

And so I put this idea forward to our house church and Kirk took it and actually came up with some very personal, and fantastic, and inspiring options for growth. I got excited. What do I want to become?

I want to become a gardener. I want to grow vegetables, and herbs, and berries, and trees. I want to play in the dirt.

I want to become strong. I want to run and climb, and jump, and hike, and bike, balance and stretch.

I want to remember how to pray all day. I want to take celtic prayers (a prayer for each activity). I want to become prayerful.

I want to listen for and to God each day. I want to overcome fear of silence, and getting it jumbled and wrong, and ignoring him. I want to become prophetic.

I want to become handy, creative, and constructive. I want to tackle house projects and renos. I want to gain skills and experience, and confidence, and art.

I want to remember how to be a friend to more than just one. I want to save my poor extroverted spirit who shrivels trying to become all these other things alone.

I want to remember that scripture can be alive. I want it to speak to everything I become.

Guacamole, Daylight & Friends: Pleasure

Sherry's "finishing her chapter" before we go to bed (there must be only two chapters in that book). So I hopped on the computer to read Faye's blog I noticed her working on the other day. There were in fact two posts. I also read Rachel's, and now I feel compelled to write my own.

I suppose a lot has changed since I was house shopping with Sherry last year. I don't know how much time I have to write this blog; Sherry could, after all, decide to get tired and not finish the book, I mean chapter. So what to include? Let me start with now and work backwards.

Right now, I just finished working on a Roof Material Estimating Calculations module. I'm in my 2nd year Carpentry apprenticeship 8 weeks of school. I just finished week 4. In 4 weeks I must return to work. Return to what work? Well, I'll probably go back to framing with Kyle - well probably not directly any more. I'll be running a crew now. Is this exciting news? Well, not really. In many ways it's disappointing. I'm still framing. It feels like the necessary denouement to my framing career. I've 'run things' while Kyle's been on vacation. But now it will be running things all the time. It scares me, because there are often bad things that arise while framing, and they are stressful to work around. You encounter other people's mistakes and have to compensate. You make mistakes and have to fix them. Your crew makes mistakes and you have to have them fix them. These sorts of things happen all too often and steal all the fun out of work. Then comes the complicated problem-solving opportunities that I always seem to take too much time thinking through. Mainly they go something like:

1. Don't screw this up like that other time Nolan

2. Hmm what if I did it like this?

3. But what about...

4. Agh this is taking too long and I'll screw it up even after all this deliberation - just do it!

Yes, often those were all vocalized - just to make sure I look crazy.

Then comes the tools-not-working setbacks and the weather wreaking havoc.

And it becomes oh so difficult to focus with all the mental multi-tasking of directing and teaching other people and trying to coordinate tasks efficiently, while making sure we have the right materials.

So, can I do it?

God I hope so. If only until November.

It will be good, it will be another step in 'growing up'.

Growing up, by the way, has come to mean attaining the right to say, "yes I can do that."

To honestly say those words, usually involves having struggled to learn how to do that once already, and succeeded.

Back to the disappointing part. I don't feel very fulfilled building houses that don't measure up to the potential I've discovered they can be. I'm not saying I only want to build million dollar houses. I'm saying I want to build sustainably. Sadly I will be working on Sable houses. Maybe that's necessary. Maybe it's better this way. It might be good to learn how to run a crew while working on quick and easy cookie cutters. In the future, when the economy picks up and Builders are looking for crews, I can slide over to working with a Jayman or an Avalon on Built Green houses. But that doesn't seem likely. I have fingers that have degenerated into miserable imposters for Canadian-raised appendages. I can't frame in the winter.

That's not a bad thing, because there are so many other pieces to building a house that I want to learn. Owning a house has only accelerated that need. Everywhere I look I now wish I could say, "I can do that."

If I didn't have quite so loyal a personality, I would just go find jobs in all the various trades for 3 months to get a basic understanding of each. Except that even if my loyalty didn't suck me into 6 year stretches, my quest for excellence in craft would.

Home renovations are intimidating. We have a tight budget (even if we didn't I'd still be shrewd and forever looking for more bang for my buck) and I have lofty ambitions. This generates the "all labour by me" factor in the equation. Which you might connect from the long ramble before this, will translate into stress as I fumble my way through the learning curve, and a gigantic magnet for the sucker in me who wants to find out how to excavate down to the footing, cut holes into the foundation, throw 4-7" of EPS foam on the exterior, enclose the chimney piping, move, expand, create, and replace windows and doors, complete with drywall and casing work, remove, trim and reattach soffit, install Hardi-plank siding, have an HRV system installed, finish the ceiling and top rim of a shower, install insulation stops in the roof, add more ceiling insulation, redo attic accesses that will properly seal air tight, build terraced window wells, engage in faux-painting techniques and finish in time to get busy on the yard work I have planned: Plant a few trees, build raised garden beds, and an elaborate garden. Then I'll rest up until I feel the need to frame in a closet in the bedroom downstairs and install cork flooring in the basement and the upper bedrooms, and pour a stamped concrete patio in the back, with a stone wall maybe.

So, call me slightly ambitious, or stupid.

I continue to get more and more complicated with my eating and cooking habits. I'm slightly ambitious in my quest for delicious and healthy food too. I'll save you the list though.

I've left behind past ambitions. I haven't gone skiing once yet, and haven't made any plans to do so. I haven't been climbing in almost a year. I never started dance lessons. I've lost old disciplines. I don't work out. I don't read the bible. No lectio divinas.

My Mom has cancer, and before Christmas I'd cry every day and pray for her. 2010, it's almost set into being normal, but every few days it will still hit me. My goal is to see her once a week, and even that feels weak.

Most of the time it feels like I'm trying my best. I still look for and appreciate wonderful things. Guacamole, daylight, an evening with friends. I'm quite sure it's those beautiful tastes, sights, and connections that keep life abundant. God deserves a lot of thanks. Sometimes I remember how it's easier than I think to be close to him. Other times all I can find is how hard it is to pin him down on demand.

His love is unfailing, and mine is persevering.

Shopping, But What Do We Need?

So Sherry and I have begun house shopping with our excellent realtor, Mark Horch.  Our search area is pretty broad:  South of the Bow River, East of Sarcee Trail, North of Fish Creek Park, and West of Barlowe Trail.  Our price range narrows down the physical area; I have yet to see anything come up in Mission for example.  Riverbend was a pleasant surprise as a focus community, it's beautiful, green, super close to Sherry's work, and the river/Carburn park, and you get really good value for your money.  Other surprise areas I didn't guess I would be seriously considering are Deer Run and Woodbine.  

So we've looked at hundreds of listings online, and gone out to see a dozen with more lined up.  And while yes, we can easily say, oh they're asking way too much for this, or wow, who let these plans get passed?  We don't really know what we're looking for.  We don't know who will be living with us.  How many bedrooms do we need?  Should we be looking for something we can suite?  How much can we really afford?  (especially if we want to dress it up).  Strange questions and yet I still think God will let us know which house to get.  And though I've very soberly thought it would be so much easier to be renting and saving for the next couple of years, I have no peace that it's the thing to do.  

In other news, tomorrow will be day 4 off of work due to my back/neck being scrunched Friday.  The awesome Dr. Nardella will be attacking me tomorrow again (my poor, poor abused body).  But no one heard me ask for a nice chiropractor, I just want results!  (he is nice anyway, he's just aggressive)

Research Projects

So, aside from Rock Climbing, I've been occupied with a few research projects lately.
I was in Chapters a few weeks ago with Sherry and came across a book entitled, How Jesus Became Christian, by Barrie Wilson. I opened it up and read a little bit. It seemed very controversial, and I wanted to read it. So we looked it up at the Calgary Public Library, and sure enough they had it. I looked for a couple of other books along the same lines from different viewpoints to balance things and found What Have They Done With Jesus? by Ben Witherington III and Lee Strobel's The Case For The Real Jesus.
Due to a house start delay and two especially cold days. I had a few days off work with which to get a giant head start on the reading. I was doing complimentary reading on the side with various biblical passages and looking into sources. And the first book got to me. As an aside, the writing style is irritating. The book could have been a third or less of its size if he didn't repeat himself endlessly, often quoting himself verbatim from previous chapters. But how would the book look impressive enough to be worth selling if it was a quarter of its size?
I was also irritated by his fixation on anti-semitism (what is semitism you might ask? Dicitionary.com gives us "Of, relating to, or constituting a subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic language group that includes Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, and Aramaic." But some Nazi-influencing writer used it in contrast to aryan groups and now the only time you'll hear semitic is following anti and always specifically designating Jewish racial prejudice).
I'm sure historically anti-semitism has been an issue within purportedly Christian groups. Otherwise why would the media hype on it so much? But it just seems ridiculously stupid to me. Why would you hate the culture your God specifically honours? The people that your God chose to become human within? The race that founded your religion?
So very very ignorant, and perhaps this was pertinent back in medieval times when common people were exploited by some politically bent, power-mongering educated elitists. But come on? Do you really need to sell this to Chapters' readers?
That's not what got to me though.

His theory is that Jesus was a very Torah (Jewish Law)-abiding rabbi. That his true followers didn't think he was anything but a man, albeit an anti-Roman man, who was resurrected after his crucifixion, and now was waiting for the opportune time to return and create peace on earth. And that Paul was bored or demented and decided to invent a religion for non-Jewish people who thought Jewish people were cool, that would be more similar to some Hellenized religions (Hellenized, as in the virulent Greek-Roman culture). This religion was popular (even though it led to horrific persecution) until a Caesar made it the state religion, and then it became truly predominant and they snuffed out Jesus' true followers. But because it's more distinguished to be an ancient religion, they wrote the fictitious book of Acts to tie themselves to Judaism, and then hate Judaism.

It's all very nice to have a more objective perspective on the book now, but whilst reading it, I think I doubted my faith for the first time in my entire life. What would I do if Christianity's beliefs were all based on one man's mystical experience that didn't match up with the person in the vision?
Would I convert to Judaism like the author? Why? Then it would all be based on other people's mystical experiences.
How would I rediscover Truth?
My entire life, since early childhood I've believed in and interacted with God in very dynamic, and personal ways. So why would I suddenly doubt my entire life? I think it's because I value truth, whether I like it or not.

So it has been very interesting to find out how biased and often very unreliable his sources are. It has been very refreshing to go through the second book which while countering the first book in many ways quite successfully, also has brought many additional new things to light.
Right now though I don't want to go on at any length since I haven't finished, but I'm satisfyingly learning.

Sherry and I have also been poking about in the world of autonomous and sustainable housing.
I build houses for a living and it was of great comfort to recently discover that framing is still important in the construction of eco-houses. We went to visit ASH Inc. 's public tour of their house-office last Saturday and it was exciting. For one thing, their website is far outdated and thus there were lots of new and fresh innovations and developments. But mostly it was exciting because our dream is so tangible and attainable, in a sooner than later kind of way.
What we would like to see is a Co-op Housing development created with this kind of building approach. So now we must look into Co-op Housing into much greater detail (lucky for us we have friends involved in one), while continuing to do research into the building side, to figure out the specific steps of action we must take.

The last field of research which I will include to show my failures, is personal investing and finances. I'm still in the everlong spot of lots of intention and several points of trying to instigate, but nothing has yet materialized in any sort of real beginning.