i think we would have been friends...

warning: this is a bit random tonight...i'm going to blame the heat! :-)

maybe i'm the only one who does this, but have you ever started reading a book, and immediately, whether because of the author's tone or style, or maybe something completely undefined, you start to feel like like you have something in common with the him or her...like, if you lived next door to each other, you would have been friends?

when i read G.K. Chesterton's books, that is how i feel. there's something about the way he writes, i can't help but think that we would have enjoyed may cups of coffee while discussing books and life in general together. i just picked up 'orthodoxy' again tonight, and as i wasn't very far, i started back at the beginning again. as i read, i found this:

"how can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it? how can this queer cosmic town, with its many-legged citizens, with its monstrous and ancient lamps, how can this world give us at once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honor of being our own town?"

when you hold these up to Peter's words, "Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul," (1 Peter 2:11), it's easy to understand how so many people who love God can get caught up in temporal thinking. this world is all we've ever known. It's all we've ever seen. it is far too easy to forget that there is another world coming.

i am always amazed when i meet someone who has never been out of canada. it amazes me that someone could be satisfied living a life without seeing the rest of the world we live in. like being given a whole yard to play in and only staying in one corner. i realize that for some people, it's just being content where they are, and perhaps i am too much like my father, in that i am always wanting to go somewhere...anywhere! but it seems impossible to me that there will ever be a day when there is no where in the world where i will want to go (even if it is simply calgary to see my little people!)

but how does one remember that this world, although all we can see with our eyes, is only a fragment of our existence? that is my question for tonight. and for tonight, my only answer is that i have to do it on a minute by minute basis. for this moment, i choose to remember that there is more than i can see. for this moment i will choose to listen to God's heart instead of the other clamoring voices. for this moment... may my heart's desires always mirror those of my God.

home again

tonight i am back home after spending four days in calgary for john & cathy's wedding, and i cannot decide if it is a good thing, or otherwise.

of course, being back to work tomorrow will be good, although, given the hyper-activity of the last few days, i am feeling a bit ill-prepared for what is surely awaiting me. but, much to my chagrin, derek seems to be right...it gets harder to leave the kids every time i head back home. there really is nothing else in my world like the smile on nicky's face when he sees me & yells 'aunt suzi!'

how is it possible to have your heart pulled in so many different directions?

once again, however, rilke has summed up my life with his poetry, and with this, i will head off to sleep:

Out of infinite longings rise
finite deeds like weak fountains,
falling back just in time and trembling.
And yet, what otherwise remains silent,
our happy energies—show themselves
in these dancing tears.

happy august!

how happy am i that it is august? how immensely excited am i that i put the months of september & october in my planner today? how incredibly tired am i of heat & humidity? the answers to all these questions are off the charts. and i don't even care anymore how many death threats i get for this...I WISH IT WAS FALL!!

i've never been good at the whole waiting thing, or, to be honest, the whole concept of patience. the act (or seeming 'nonact') seems like just so much procrastination & laziness. but i am slowly learning just exactly what kind of hard work waiting really is. it's not passive. it's not lazy. quite the opposite.

it is remaining where you need to be when all you want to do is run away. it's taking the time to grow and prepare for what will one day come, without the promise of knowing when that day will come. it's actually believing that the elusive day will indeed come, when all you can see around you is the same thing you saw yesterday...two weeks ago...last year...

maybe, waiting is even more draining than moving. perhaps that explains my tiredness.

good night.

the best picture ever!

for all who know & love wes,

here is the best picture ever!