Change (Revised/Clarified?)

According to statistics, 90% of us are unable or unwilling to change,* and yet that is not to say we can't. We still have the opportunity to change our lifestyles - diet, exercise, giving, everyday social interaction, and yet we are unable to change who we fundamentally are - that comes through grace and a transformation, that while it does involve us, it has to ability to be ultimately more life altering and ultimately eternal unlike any dietary or exercise routine could ever be. While most of us know this is occurring - Ken reaffirmed tonight a change I've been conscious of more so as of late - the world - and the change of me in it, or just it changing around me or both. Those changes are shaping a new path, a regeneration of sorts, a clarity - a clarity that "your grace has found me just as I am, empty handed but alive in your hands" Delirious. We sang that song tonight, and it provided an articulation of the recent year - I have gone from blessing to blessing and now I sit, in the sense that there is no immediate visible change - no move, no new job - and yet it is a moment where I can consciously sense change - a change that I am being to realize is/will be greater then what has occurred and yet more difficult.

As of late there has been some concern voiced as of late that there is a preoccupation with a relationship, this is to the detriment of my character, my intellect. For one I would like to say that we are all wired for community and right now first and foremost I am seeking community and not a relationship - if that was all I wanted that is a void easily filled, but God has called me to be wise about who I open my heart to and a random guy is not it. So to the issue of community, when I graduated and even when I returned to SFU, I found that there was no place within the university community for me - due to age, experience etc. Then I left Willingdon in the Fall, and I left what was my church community for my life - my youth kids, my mentors and people I had grown up with - the kids being the ones I was most directly in contact with. And now I am in the middle of my own life change - in time availability, interests and direction, much like my peers, as such it has come time for me to actively seek new community. I am consciously seeking like-minded individuals and yes many happen to be single - both men and women - as their lifestyles are similar - in doing so, I do open my life to the possibility to meeting single men, gaining friends - seeing myself in different interactions and yes possibility dating.

Now the concern specifically about this seeking community has been tied to my character and I am not sure how these actions reduce my character. Nor do I see how asking and or accepting the help of others in this process or even in dating reduces my character either. Each person we meet adds something to our lives - just like I would not take back the processes of online meeting from this spring because they further solidified what I want and the characteristics I should be weary of. So if in the end that means I email K or meet Darcy's friend the pastor - so be it - it's a moment of my life - I'm not doing anything in God's eyes that is immoral, shameful or an exemplification of poor character. And that is the end of the matter - it will not be discussed here or elsewhere again.

I want to be the 10% who can change - who can remove themselves from their pasts - grow from it and find a rich, supportive soil of friendship, grace and ultimately faith to grow into. Much like a lotus - out of the mud and sludge, beauty can grow and arise.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toshio1/221371474/

It's not a Manic Monday, more like a Woeful Wednesday

The day started off with my left eye looking puffy - my wonderful eczema, which is going to take a few days to clear - it would be helpful if I didn't have to put makeup on but that's not really an option. It got even more frustrating when the Starbucks didn't have soy - how can you not have soy at 8:45am? You've been open for like 3 hours and you don't have soy? Bah, I was so prepared to walk home and carry back a tetra pac of Silk just so I could have my Green Tea Latte without melon... instead I bought a coffee, and since I've been off the stuff for three weeks now my IBS took issue with the surge of caffeine as well as my brain and thus the free Grande cup of coffee remains three-quarters un-consumed. To add the bliss of this morning while getting up to check the script on my first patients glasses I hear this *tink,* a button had fallen off my brand new blouse. The only blessing is it was the second from the bottom. Then just before lunch as I was checking my email - I get a response back from R at Tenth - we'd love baking for the next two Sunday nights - the next TWO! ___ (insert choice unladylike word) I am going to be baking for all eternity - as 5-6 dozen is the average quantity and now I have to also figure out what to bake... This week it looks like lemon loaf and snickerdoodles. Next week? Rhubarb platz and graham crackers with chocolate drizzle? Or switch the weeks - I guess it depends on what I can find at Donald's - if there is fresh rhubarb or not. Grr - I just want to go home - get into my Lulu's, wash off this horrid make up and have an awesome meal of chickpea tacos.

One more thing to add - we can only refract in one room right now, leaving me to run up and down the ramp at a frantic pace - to ensure he always has that one room full - yay for work based exercise.

Another Reason to Love Tenth

A part of me this week had been seeking reaffirmation that I wasn't attending Tenth for the wrong reasons, that there was a reason for me to be going - aside from BMMWH and an overall dissatisfaction with Willingdon. A few weeks back as I blogged, they discussed issues of homosexuality in very liberal, compassionate, open but still very spiritual based way, this week as they are working through 2 Samuel - they discussed the Rape of Tamar. I've got to say in my 20+ years at Willingdon - rape, abuse or any kind of sexual violation was never discussed. Maybe because we still believe it's a taboo subject, but I think it is more due to an inability to one, understand and two, believe that such a topic is relevant to the Church.

Just as I noted with the issues of gender, homosexuality and self-articulation - there is a need for the discussion of oppression and the need for justice, for the Church to stand not only between victims and the oppressors but also to find means of aiding healing.

I've discussed the situation with Iain - and most of you on some level have had to deal with the repercussions and healing process - especially when the healing is independent of any form of face to face or confrontational expression, to indicate his wrong doing and my pain. As well to some extent, I've discussed my relationship with Richard. Tonight's service reaffirmed that the issue is not so much what occurred but the guilt and subsequent shame. There is still a social undercurrent that says you started it therefor you were party to it - it doesn't matter that you said no, that your body language changed, and that you were visibly distressed. There is still the training or what have you that makes certain behavioral responses instinctual like that the first thing I did was plead forgiveness from him - that I caused this... I can't believe it when I look back on it - but some how my brain was there and in many respects it still is. He just responded dumbfounded like nothing had happened - he left it there and I carried it forward. Intimacy scares me, and yes that fear harms new relationships - I still get flashes of that morning, and it hurts, there is a part of me that remains broken and cannot leave it be. The part of me that breaks when I wonder how many women, especially young Christian women have found themselves in similar situations and walk away feeling that they are the perpetrator, their shame a result the sin.

How do you walk away from it? To be honest, I've yet to find a way to strip the whole mess down to what it was - which was a poorly constructed relationship - I was in to ease the pain of being more or less kicked out of my parents house - and he was in for whatever reason I do not know. There was lust sure, but there was no love, honesty or truth - I was fragile and he took all that he could and more.

Maybe Leah that's one of the most basic reasons I am still single, because regardless of the normal aspect of my emotions - that says any type of healthy (i.e. Christian) intimacy is not be feared, there is a greater more foreboding shadow that maintains that I should fear - that be touched by a man is to be violated - that to open myself up is to be made vulnerable, and that any miss step could end up more tragic - and even worse I should have known better. It starts that cycle, I know that to be a victim is in some level a choice. I have a choice to move beyond this from a rhetorical point of view, just haven't found the means to do so.

Postscript: I was thinking about this issue this morning - how do we address the underlying issue in relation to the Church - that this doesn't happen to good Christian girls - in other words - you dress modest, you don't go out to clubs/parties, you would never drink and of course your boyfriends would be void of any kind of sexual feelings. It shouldn't matter how I dress, or spend my weekends because in the end it doesn't protect someone nor does it make certain actions permissible. But I know I've been labeled in regards to the tattoo, the desire for more as well as maybe a facial piercing and that I'm a feminist - somehow that knocks me down a peg on the chaste scale and therefor easy/easier. I know some of you will laugh at this - but others know it, you've been told it to your face or had it insinuated. Part of me finds it ironic - the tattoo is the product of a steadfast love of a mentor, Bobbi - she held on as I grappled with my relationship with Andrew and continually reminded me - there is one Beloved I should be pursuing.

The Trouble with Men...

The trouble with men is despite all your intentions they have this way of becoming a recurrent yet desired nuisance in your life. So despite the trouble this boy is causing, I just happened to have posted two ads - one in Craigslist and the other in the Georgia Straight to tract down the man haunting my dreams and contaminating my sanity. Fingers crossed he's taken so I don't have to fight Leaha for him.

Talked to death...

I work with predominately women and all being in some stage of relationship and me the single unmarried one in the office - what then shall we talk about but me. Single me... Seriously I'm not actively looking - if someone where to come along with serious intents then maybe that would change - strong emphasis on the maybe.

I just overall find it exhausting to deal with the social constructs that dictate goals that I don't have for my life now or know if I ever will have - and all the while trying to explain that I'm in a season of waiting - waiting is acceptable is it not? Are we not called to wait on the Lord, not blaze ahead on a path we feel we are destined for regardless of the actual timing and will of God. I realized that due to the societal constructs I am inherently a disappointment. I have yet to give birth and honestly I have no intention on doing so – I really do not want to give birth – not the whole pain issue – I do not believe it’s socially/ethically responsible in light of the number of children suffering around this world without families as such adoption is the only option for me. Marriage doesn’t float my boat either to be honest, while the concept of companionship is wonderful, I’m not sure it’s entirely necessary for me and or that it wouldn’t be a hindrance. But regardless I face the onslaught daily – the You are not married? You’re not pregnant? (No, that’s just IBS…), You are not even looking?

But at the end of the day I don't really know what to do when continually forced to deal with these questions, grace is running in short supply and at the same time there is this perception that this is your fault – this is your decision, you’re the one who walks around with red hair, it should be your natural brown or spinach in your teeth or those tattoos - all acts ensure you are single when have we ever thought to think God just doesn’t think it’s important right now – He’s working on other more important things? We all have our path right or wrong? The whole path analogy is only ever used when things are dissatisfactory for ourselves, never recognized when things in another’s life are dissatisfactory to us.

Of course in an act of hypocrisy I will not deny that there was a boy in the front row of 10th that caught my attention - but that is a whole long long ways away from me ever acknowledging him in any formal sense because as stated to death, talked about to death and my complete and utter mental break I am changing my life because I know it's needed not for a man, I don't need one to be complete and I sure as hell don't need one messing up my life right now.