An Evening of the Three Rs

Despite being hugely exasperated by the erroneousity (I enjoy how “erroneousity” has a nice ring to it, and am consequently making use of it despite its lack of existence as an actual word) of the aphorism referenced in this entry’s heading, it is rather fitting for my late night thus far. It is currently 4:37, and I’ve yet to get a wink of sleep, and highly doubt that I shall anytime before midnight tonight; I’m assuming that it’s safe to call it Sunday at this point, of course. Anyhow, I digress; the descriptor of the three rs is especially fitting for the past while since I returned from the Worship Café tonight with C&C at a ridiculously early hour (yes, the curfew struck again!) because it has been chock-a-block with reading, writing, and rocking out (and I did ponder some calculus as I pondered a certain situation in my book, so perhaps arithmetic could have been included among the rs as well). After several hours of reading to some Azure Ray, Donnie Darko soundtrack, and Rogue Wave, I’ve resolved to rest my eyes a little, though not by wasteful sleeping, and instead will blog until some other pursuit becomes alluring. I was planning on spinning something off for the blog pre-weekend because there’s rarely time between Friday and Sunday to do so, but cooking, coffee outings, and shopping intervened.

Up until this point, the weekend has treated me quite well. Friday and Saturday were wholly enjoyable days, full of Irish and foolish delights. After a morning of profs cracking fairly lame jokes about St. Patrick and the colour green, I worked Friday afternoon with the lone guy barista in the café who was in an excellently juvenile mood, and discussed sugar daddies and hugging modus operandi with me for four lovely hours. I then made my way home, ignoring the previous disorganized plans from earlier in the day, and met up with some fine folks at my house (and Crystal was only 30 minutes late I believe!). Eventually, we (Crystal, Mike, Rob, Dusty, Karla, and yours truly) made it over to Swiss Chalet where I proceeded spray my jeans with ketchup, eat a combination of this jean-harming ketchup with coleslaw and whipped butter and the supposedly “special” sauce, likely offend our black waiter and any black patrons of the restaurant within listening radius, and make use of a foul-sounding ketchup bottle (ketchup clearly figured prominently in my Swiss Chalet experience). We also amused ourselves with hangman, Dusty’s astoundingly correct spelling in hangman, throwing things at each other (I’ll admit that was the primary perpetrator of the pen-flinging, but not the only one), delectable waffles with highly caloric toppings, Rob’s admission of his real motivations for going into the not-as-cool-as-science-psychology engineering, gleaning purse-shopping wisdom from Karla, discussion of how we all share a love for taxes and abhorrence for the word hate (I was surprised too, but this is what they told me!), Crystal’s incredibly amazing navigator who gave her alternately excessive and deficient directions, the near-demise of Brock’s fuzzy dice from someone’s car window, challenging efforts to ascertain precisely what street Swiss Chalet resides on, nefarious Shillelagh assaults and retaliation with bags, incomprehensible gestures from presumably intoxicated car passengers, Mike’s pansy-like and elderly reaction to real winter, and an assortment of other bizarre episodes while driving, eating, and fiddling around in Dusty’s kitchen.

While at Dusty’s, we additionally viewed a few episodes of “Family Guy” which I was rather impressed with. Not only was it generally hilarious, it was nearly as (and at times more, I would venture to say) acute in its commentary of (North) American society. Of course, as I had previously gathered from the many among my friends who love “Family Guy,” it crosses the line at times, and there were certainly moments that I cringed at, but the laughs did not fail to make the at times distasteful or odious moments worth the watch. Reminiscence of predatory fire trucks, pyramid schemes run by an infant and his pet dog, and new usages for the term “little people” provided Colleen and me with a great deal of laughs at work on Saturday. I suspect that it may even receive my viewership tonight, though I typically avoid watching TV on weekends. After a morning of feigned-sympathizing with snow weary customers, working through bizarrely problematic cash outs, green tea latté madness, and “Family Guy” references, I worked through some homework before semi-attempting (and failing) to pay homage to Steve, in a way which I’m not sure that I’m at liberty to share despite its complete lack of fruition, with Dusty, Rob, and Mike. Instead, there was much lazing around, discovery of Dusty’s zeal for magic art cubes, eating of undercooked pizza, and polite listening by Rob and Mike to my dad’s ramblings about Apple’s supreme brilliance.

As one would expect, the highlight of Saturday was the Worship Café (or Worship Cage as some amusing organizers of the event subconsciously prefer to call it). It was an awesome time of corporate worship, fellowship, teachings, and contemplation. I loved the fact that it was just the group of C&Cers, and the fact that it was in the Lighthouse (a small building where I went to daycare a bit down from the main church building) reminded me of worship at my old church. I really miss the intimacy and vulnerability of the prayer nights at Zion, when my mom would lead worship with just one of our guitarists and my dad softly drumming. Partially because my old church was so small, there was such freedom in corporate worship, and we all knew and loved each other so much that there was never trepidation of what those around you thought of you. Whether sitting or standing, belting out a verse or silently praying, still reflection or unrestrained dancing, and weeping or grinning a huge grin, it was so natural to feel Spirit-led in times during services at Zion. If someone felt led to share something, they could come to the front and speak their heart, and our time of community prayer allowed any desire to appear strong and self-sufficient to fade away. I’ve gained so much from the services at McKernan, but they are markedly different from what I’m accustomed to, and it simply take time to become completely accustomed to a different worship setting. I’m quite certain that most of the aspects of worship that I miss from my old church are simply the ones that I’m not experiencing to the very fullest at McKernan because I’m overly quixotic about how everything was at Zion. In Lyle’s sermon this past Sunday, he made the argument that deluding ourselves into believing that some aspect of our spiritual lives will never be quite up to par with what it was is very dangerous to our spiritual passion. While I do feel pretty joyful and spiritually passionate most of the time, I’m sure that I could get still more out of church when I had faith that I would experience worship in church even more fully than ever.

Perhaps the most productive aspect of the weekend was my accomplishment of interdicting Crystal’s undue use of the word “hate” for the next month (following my successful consumption of the aforementioned Swiss Chalet concoction). Though she hasn’t really curbed her habit of proclaiming her hatred of certain things, I can now freely give her stern looks whenever the word pops out of her mouth, notwithstanding my evident inability to stop myself from uttering it when discussing Ralph Klein (that was an honest mistake!). Not that I’m ever genuinely affronted when one of my reviled words (hate, stupid, fathead, loser, Communist used as some form of insult, Arts student used as some form of insult, retarded, adjectives used as adverbs, generally severe profanity), I just love language and think some words are not as cool as others when used in certain ways, like those just listed. Thus, most of my reaction to the sounding of these words is for fun, and I just attempt to limit my personal use of them. However, my friends seem to delight in using them in a sadistic fashion, so I tend to habituate to them and even use some of them at times, especially hate and loser, (not too frequently, mind you, but enough that it annoys me) which I’m attempting to put an end to. My friends’ propensity for impinging on my vocabulary is very unjust indeed. Yet there are some first-rate words that I have absorbed from my odd collection of comrades, including mollycoddle, mollydooker, Worship Cage (I’m still giggling at that), fantastiche, prolificacy, stoked (though the jury’s still out on that one), gels, Shillelagh, Roblog (despite the fact that I think I coined that one; or did I?), equiaxed, and idempotence. Perhaps I shall simply refer to things that I might accidentally say I hate as mollycoddles and threaten my pseudo-foul-mouthed friends with Shillelaghs when they do not adhere to my strict lexical guidelines. Or I could just throw things at them, I suppose, which is always the best course of action.

I do believe that it’s important for those of us who are Christians to be intentional about what we say, and while this doesn’t mean censoring the silly words that annoy me out of our vocabulary, it does mean that we should be striving to be loving, sincere, blunt, and constructive in conversation with others. Sometimes it seems that churches are far too willing to be polite and tolerant with Christians, and can be fairly brusque with non-Christians. Not that I think we should be having fire and brimstone sermons, or be supporting abortion or whatever the religious issue of the day is, but I think that sometimes we could be more judicious in how we dole out the love and scolding. While it’s difficult for Christians to be intentionally loving towards a group of people who we strongly disagree with and may find offensive, Jesus calls us to do this, even if that group of people is (or is perceived as) our enemy. It’s equally difficult to be candid with our fellow Christians when they’re our brothers and sisters in Christ, but along with a role in encouragement, a church community certainly has a function in holding its members accountable. At times it’s difficult to be intentional about everything that comes out of our mouths, or everything that we do for that matter, but I think it’s certainly something we’re called to do. My non-Christian friends often fail to understand why I don’t drink to the point at which I can’t think logically or prudently, but it’s awfully challenging to be deliberate when my mind is clouded.

Although it’s fundamental to rely on our “hearts,” consciences, God’s word, and prayer when going through life, there is an intellectual aspect to spirituality that I suspect is sometimes neglected. There are many Christian traditions that I think we unthinkingly act out, whether it’s Christmas, Communion, Lent, or traditional styles of evangelism, when we could be considering the implications of, alternatives of (not that we would act out these alternatives, but establish why we’re doing what we are instead of something else), and purposes for these practices. In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis suggests that Christians have a responsibility to think through, rather than just feel through, our spiritual lives, and at times we tend to neglect this because thinking critically about spiritual issues is often associated with doubt, cynicism, and the world of scientific atheism. Questioning what has become conventional in Christian circles is often frowned upon, and I’ve seen black sheep who come with different, yet still God-dependent (hopefully!), perspectives in Christian communities often end up alienated from those communities. An element of the beauty of community, however, is the beauty of each individual’s excellently unique angle on God, living out our faiths, and the world around us. When that unique angle comes from contemplation and investigation, I think it can become more certain, less defensive, clearer, and easier to incorporate into our lives. A brief examination of this issue from a psych viewpoint would have to include a comment on identity formation. When an identity, in this case as a follower of Jesus, is formed without personal inquiry (foreclosure), people become close-minded, extremist, and reactive in their interactions with people who differ from them. The ideal identity achievement is attained through consideration of opposing views, the consequences of assuming a particular identity, and the reasons for choosing that identity. Only when we recognize precisely why we believe and live as we do can we go out into the world and totally love and relate to people who don’t yet know the truth and share with them that truth. After all, God is truth, and when we search for the truth and meditatively question the things going on around and within our lives, we’ll ultimately find Him. I’m certain that I could drone on about spiritual issues and the various things that I’ve been contemplating recently, but I think I shall move on to some other, more passive activity in this night of not sleeping. I hope that all of your sleeps are going fabulously well, and that I don’t make too many grammatical errors when depriving myself completely (more than the usual partial deprivation) of slumber.

Music I’m Loving
- Royksopp
- Brian Eno
- Bauhaus
- Cat Power (terrible first name, but I love her to pieces)
- CocoRosie
- The Constantines
- Gemma Hayes
- Goldfrapp
- Brokeback Mountain Soundtrack
- Joanna Newsome
- José González
- The Magic Numbers
- Mendoza Line
- the Tangiers
- Minus the Bear
- OK Computer
- The Mohawk Lodge
- The Most Serene Republic (sorry all you MSR-dislikers)
- Of Montréal
- Rosie Thomas (yay for Jill’s blog!)
- The Like
- Ron Sexsmith
- Low
- Adam Green
- Stereolab
- The Arctic Monkeys (still obsessed)
- Be Your Own Pet
- PJ Harvey
- broadcasts from SXSW 2006

Films I Must See
- Little Miss Sunshine
- L’Enfant
- Winter Passing
- Marie Antoinette
- Squid & the Whale
- Shopgirl
- Talladega Nights
- Crash (you’re right Jeremy, I do have to see it to be fair)
- Everything is Illuminated
- Chumscrubber
- Thumbsucker
- Trust the Man
- Why We Fight
- Transamerica
- Lonesome Jim
- Tristram Shandy – A Cock and Bull Story
- Syriana
- Water
- A Scanner Darkly (yay Philip K Dick!)






















Fabulous Things that I’ve Enjoyed Of Late
- SUB’s Mac lab
- “Family Guy” (sorry Andrew!)
- the excess of whip cream atop Java Jive hot chocolates
- Azure Ray, Rogue Wave, and American Analog Set
- George Orwell
- Niccolà Machiavelli
- sparkly t-shirts
- walking through snowbanks on my way to school
- discussion of the Canucks’ upcoming loss to my Oilers
- balcony bunny’s recent departure
- not sleeping (nothing new, I know, but key to my weekend’s excellence)
- cinnamon toast
- Jess, particularly when she performs odd accents
- new clothing, even if I can’t remove certain jackets on my own
- Chris Buck
- Steve O’Malley and his penchant for paraffin blush
- Dick the Gnome’s absent stare and awe-inspiring music
- throwing apples around
- snow, snow, snow
- not having to drive through snow because I walk everywhere
- misconstructions with friends and strangers alike
- the dozens of customers who come into the café with fogged up glasses
- Paul McCartney’s intense love of seals

Things I’d Like to Discuss If I Wasn’t Bored with Typing
- my parents’ rationale for my curfew
- how I’ve misplaced my Bible and notebook
- how I don’t like using my old Bible as much as my current one
- Rex Murphy
- how nature totally reflects God’s character (but these notes are in my notebook, which has disappeared)
- the inevitability of hardship in our lives due to our sin
- optimism
- clothing purchases and giving money to NGOs
- God’s use of the good, bad, and the ugly in teaching us
- the fact that some of the most celebrated Christians have come from extremely rich and blessed backgrounds or extremely harsh and testing backgrounds
- evangelism and an intelligent and Spirit-led approach to it
- my sappiness for all things sentimental, romantic, and adorable
- Alberta under NDP governance (Sir Thomas Moore’s Utopia realized?)
- Ralph Klein
- gnomes and all of their beauty and unique insight
- cults, and avoiding becoming a cult (not actually a joke!)
- prayer