Have I Found My Calling?

We went to visit my mom’s side of family in Ottawa this Christmas, and my cousin Samantha told me she dreams about me [how flattering!]. Well, actually, she had one specific dream about me. Here it is:

She was with her boyfriend and her brother, driving Highway 7 to Peterborough, but in her dream, Highway 7 was completely straight and lined with tall cliffs. Waterfalls poured over the cliffs into moats on either side of the road. All of a sudden, she looked up to the top of the falls and saw. . . me[!], wearing a bathing suit with a huge cross on the front, and with a gang of followers. I leapt off a cliff into the moat, my followers did the same, and, apparently, I swam out to talk to her.

“What,” she asked, “are you doing?”

My reply? “Cliff jumping for Jesus!”

Is this dream prophetic?

Jolly Old Saint Nicholas

Santa and me, seventeen years ago. . .

School's Out, Holidays In

I'm going home! (Actually I'm writing this on the Greyhound between Toronto and Peterborough.) A month of sturm und drang is finally over (I brought 45 books back to library this morning), and I can be with the people I love. It's the most wonderful time. . .

I took a cab to the Hamilton Go Station today. The driver was very friendly -- actually most of them are, and I usually have good conversations with them. This guy and I had quite a bit in common. He used to study English literature in Morocco. He got accepted to Oxford once, but declined because he thought he wanted to go to Switzerland instead. I guess when you're a student in Morocco you have to leave in the summers if you want to find a summer job, so my driver had travelled a lot, but he says he has decided to stay in Canada. He even gave me his card and told me to ask for him next time I needed a cab!

Sometimes I complain that I have to take the Hound when everyone else on campus seems to get a ride home, but I shouldn't. Taking the bus is always interesting. The driver from Hamilton to Toronto today was Eastern European, and he and a passenger sitting at the front, who looked like she had had a pretty rough life, were chatting. She started singing. She must have sung five to ten different songs -- "Unchained Melody", "I'll Never Be Free", another one by Willie Nelson, without any self-consciousness at all. The bus is like its own world. You can choose how fully you want to experience it. When you have music, a book, or a laptop, you can easily shut yourself up in your own little world and notice nothing from departure to arrival. And the bus is often a tempting place to nap. But there is so much to see and hear around you, so many people to meet, that to do those things is kind of a waste. I guess you get what you put into it. [That being said, I'm not at all sorry that I no longer have to take the bus to Ottawa on Christmas Day.]

I'll have to do some reading over Christmas, I suppose, but I looked over my syllabi for next semester and discovered that I've already read seven of the plays we're studying, and I own copies of several others (plus the complete Shakespeare that Grandma and Grandpa gave me for Grade 8 grad). Not that I mind reading anyway, but that's a definite bonus. Also on the syllabi is a list of our planned trips -- castles, theatres, Stratford, London. . . *sigh* :)

My Christmas plans are coming together. I've got almost all my presents bought -- really unique ones, thanks to the Ten Thousand Villages sale at Redeemer. Such a great event, supporting artisans around the world, and the prices are totally reasonable. I got my dad a really fun gift (an -------- ------). He, on the other hand, is trying to convince my sister and me that what we really want him to buy us for Christmas is Critical Illness Insurance -- the gift that keeps on giving!

Kristen and I will be spending Christmas eve and morning with my dad, Tammy, and my brothers. It is so fun to spend Christmas with the boys -- they are 6 and 4 this year, so they get really excited. Sometimes a little too excited. Last year, Jonathan was scared to go to sleep, because he was torn between reeeally wanting Santa to come and not wanting a stranger in his house! Once the morning came though, it was all joy.

Mmm, Christmas morning. . . One of my favourite times is early on Christmas morning before any presents have been opened, sitting in the armchair in our living room, gazing at the lights on the tree, waiting for everyone to wake up, feeling peaceful and cozy. Then the boys wake up, so excited that they can hardly speak. Opening stockings, reading the Christmas story together, having clementines and cinnamon buns for breakfast, watching everyone open the presents you carefully chose for them. . .

Then, at 10 am, Kristen, my mom and I are driving to my aunt and uncle's house near Ottawa, to spend Christmas with that side of the family. It's always good times when we get together with our cousins, and all of us our going to be there this year, so it'll be killer. Lots of euchre, poker, president, and hearts action going on -- and when we play games, we play to the death.

I'm also hoping that over the holidays I can get together with friends whom I haven't seen for far too long -- there are quite a few of those. The last few years, we have had tons of fun at New Year's, and I hope this year will be the same. . . So many people, so little time! Why am I so blessed?

Christmas is coming

The goose is getting fat

Please put a penny

In the old man's hat

If you haven't got a penny

A half a penny'll do

If you haven't got a half a penny

God bless you

Last Night

last night, I walked home from school slowly
the snow and I were glittering like mad
I paused
and looked
and it seemed to freeze and rise before my eyes
winter was tingling in every part of me

then
it bit me
and I ran the
rest of the way home

What are those reasons again. . . ?

I went downtown yesterday. In my two and a half years of living in "Hamilton" (it's technically all Hamilton, but really we're on the outskirts of Ancaster), I have not been downtown often, except when, in first year, I volunteered at the Living Rock. I tend to get stuck in the campus bubble. But I love the atmosphere downtown. . . a little shady in places, quaint in others, and so culturally diverse. What a switch from the upper-middle-class, McMansion-filled, SUV-infested, corporately-developed Meadowlands subdivision.

Well, it was a switch in more ways than one yesterday. I went downtown yesterday morning to volunteer for the City Kidz Christmas party. It was amazing. City Kidz is a ministry for underprivileged children (is that the politically correct term anymore? maybe "non-adults who are differently privileged"?) in Hamilton. It's run out of an old movie theatre, which was built in the forties, but actually showed only adult films in the eighties.

Now it's being used to glorify God.

Throughout the year, City Kidz staff and volunteers run a program twice every Saturday and visit each child in his or her home once a week. The Christmas party actually happens three times in one weekend; I was there for the third on Sunday morning.

Each time, they sent out buses to pick up most of the kids (some come with their parents) and treated them to a Christmas show -- with singing, games, prizes, skits, video clips -- the kids loved it. It's not just entertainment though, each skit and song talked about why we celebrate Christmas (hint: greed is the wrong answer). My part was very small, all I had to do was help seat people and hand out juice boxes and butter tarts. The rest of the time, I was assigned to a row, where I basically sat back and enjoyed the show with two really excited little boys, C--- and A------ . Most of the time, these two were bracing themselves to shoot their hands in the air in hopes that they would be called on to go onstage and play a game and maybe even win one of the massive remote control trucks that were on display as prizes.

Yet, when a staff member mistakenly thought they had won a truck and came up to congratulate them, they didn't show any bitterness or even disappointment when they found out she was wrong.

Santa and Mrs. Claus came at the end. On Saturday, I was told, one little girl was so excited that she jumped in the aisle and started dancing after them.

After the show, each person got a lunch, each child got a stocking, and each boy and girl got an age- and gender-appropriate gift -- then they all went home.

When I had first arrived that morning, I was told that one mother had called late to register her family. All 1500 spaces were already full, and they were about to turn her away [no room at the inn. . .]. Very upset, she told the staff person to whom she was speaking that there weren't going to be presents for her children this year. All she had promised them was City Kidz.

This is Canada. I'm in Hamilton, Ontario. Let's not even look at the rest of the world. That woman's children live down the mountain from kids who get cell phones, Xbox 360s, laptops for Christmas. Kids whose tree is always sparkling, with presents stuffed underneath.

Kids like me.

No, I wouldn't say I was a spoiled child. Not even that I was unaware -- from an early age, I helped with Rotary Christmas drives. And I wasn't a Meadowlands kid. I didn't get many big ticket items. But what standards do I judge by? My mom always warned us, "There's not going to be much for Christmas this year." Yet, she always managed to get us all the little things we needed or that we just wanted. And then there was our dad, our grandparents, our aunts and uncles. And I think I felt like I deserved those presents. I was told that I deserved them. Hmm.

Yeah, I guess I won't go buy myself that sweater tomorrow, after all.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3:16-20)

Edmund

So, I went to see the Chronicles of Narnia last weekend -- it was a fun night and a very good movie -- and every time I think about this part I just burst out laughing. . .

Edmund: But that's a woman's coat.

Peter: Yes, it is.

Situation Number One

Well, this is my first post ever! (Other than a deleted "test" post, upon which someone nevertheless felt the need to comment.) Blogging is sort of intimidating because some people are such good, faithful bloggers, while I am so bad at keeping anything up regularly. I don't know how it will turn out. It's intended just to be a way to keep in touch with a lot of people at once, but all you people in my life are so different. It seems weird to share the same things in the same way with everyone -- at least for a person with people-pleasing impulses. So I don't know how superficial or indepth this will be. But I'm sure it will be a good chance to grow and stretch. . . in my relationships with other people, my knowledge of myself, and my faithfulness to God. I'll try to be real. Oh, and I was excited to get such a tubular URL -- I was sure it would be taken!

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I finished my last paper yesterday afternoon, thereby ending a month-long struggle with final assignments. Oh, it was such a sweet relief! I then wrote my second exam this morning from nine to noon. English Romantic Period (1780-1830) -- primarily Keats, Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Blake. Some of these guys are so self-absorbed, it's really stunning. Writing epic poems about themselves! Studying them sheds some interesting light on the idolatries of that time -- not always so different from our own.

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The one Romantic whose work I do love is William Blake -- his mind is so original and startling. I don't agree with all his views, but still I admire him. He was a genius who was thisclose to being crazy, he had supernatural visions, fought injustice, and was even a good husband:

Blake's wife, Catherine, an illiterate, signed her wedding contract with an 'X'. Later on Blake, as well as teaching Catherine to read and write, trained her as an engraver; throughout his life she would prove an invaluable aide to him, helping to print his illuminated works and maintaining his spirits following his numerous misfortunes. Their marriage, though unblessed by children, remained close and loving throughout the remainder of Blake's life.

Okay, that was a super-long tangent.

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Back to my excuse for starting this blog. As most of you know, I'll be in England from January to April this year, studying Shakespeare and Drama as an associate student (emphasis on the associate) of Regent's Park College, University of Oxford, and living in the village of Charlbury. (I happen to be leaving Friday the 13th.) So I plan to post pictures and thoughts and traveller's tales on here, to keep a record of my journey that I can share with all you wonderful people at home.

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It seems appropriate to start today, since the idea of going to England is finally becoming real to me.

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At lunch, I packed up my dorm room and sent it home with my dad and my sister (who turned 18 on Thursday and promptly registered to vote and bought a lottery ticket -- happy birthday, Koopa!) Things are so bare now. Packing up made me realize that I am really leaving! ~WOW~ My roommate and I have even started saying goodbye. . . I'm really going to miss her. Only 4 more days. But in those 4 days I still have 4 exams left to go (one of which is a take-home that I should be working on right now).

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Then. . . Christmas! My life, I must say, is pretty great.

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A light in sound, a sound-like power in light

Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere-

Methinks, it should have been impossible

Not to love all things in a world so filled