Thankful but Wanting More

I am endeavouring to write something of substance, dear blog readers. With the advent of school and increasing insanity in my schedule, I've posted either pithy or trivial thoughts on the blog. I am, I know you've been waiting with bated breath to hear, doing well. This is not to say that I've said certain derogatory things about school at certain points, or that I haven't missed the lolling around under sunny skies that I did in the summer, but this time of year is far too beautiful not to savour. The changing winds that blow through my hair remind me of God's presence and make me feel buoyant and small; falling leaves and fading greens suggest life’s finite nature; the necessity for sweaters and scarves allow me to appreciate the loveliness of comfort; and the abundance of cushioning and crunchy leaves that line the ground oblige me to act entirely harebrained. What a beautiful time of year that God created; it seems clear to me that he created changing seasons so that our lives would be roused out of stagnancy. Everything in this world is transient. Nothing lives forever, and while there is a season for (nearly) everything, as time passes on so do the things of this world. Even through furling leaves, God can speak to us, and that strikes me as simply incredible. One doesn’t have to look far to see, or hear, God.

Jess and I were debating the personality characteristics of the seasons on Sunday (I like to attribute personalities to nearly all inanimate objects), and we came to the concurrence that fall is a time of peace and hebetude, not in the sense of lethargy, but rather in a meditative spirit. I find that putting my thinking cap back on with a slew of courses and reading to do, I'm prone to sloughing off invalidated and empty ideas. When I'm faced with the truth, even an academic, secular truth, the self-serving fallacies that I've allowed myself to buy into tend to deflate in comparison. It's painful to accept that I've been errant in my judgments, or have strayed from what God might have wanted, but obviously healthy and essential. It’s life, but it isn’t always fun, though. I’ve been exhausted at times this week, in part because of the increased workload at school and at the café. While I truly adore my job and the fact that my boss trusts me to be in charge when I’m on shift, it’s draining to feel like a bully with new staff who seem dreadfully averse to working hard. I’m used to working with my beautiful, selfless, hilarious, and understanding friends, with whom cooperation is the modus operandi to getting through a day at the café (that rhymed!). Alas, I’ve come to learn that most people are genuinely good people, but they don’t feel very compelled to exert themselves a great deal, which frustrates me to no end. It’s simply difficult to see others having things a bit easier, and ultimately getting away with it, which boils down to my personal jealousy I believe.

Life is not just; the injustice of life is inherent in my beliefs as a Christian, and I often fail to recognize how little I deserve what God gave for me. However, within these undeserved lives that we lead, there is an injustice between people that irks me in a likely insalubrious way. It drives me crazy that some of us at the café push ourselves to the point of fatigue while others prefer to watch their coworkers do their duties. It saddens me that Westerners keenly buy products from companies that crush the existence of the labourers who work in their sweat shops, and I’m horrified that a company would go so far as to murder union supporters in order to increase their profit margin. It breaks my heart that we, the fortunate followers of Christ, portray our faith as being about contempt, self-righteousness, ignorance, judgment, aggressiveness, and greed, when Christ demonstrated so clearly that it was to be about love, humility, God’s truth, grace, and benevolence. It irritates me that Canadians have elected a government that cares more about the destructive oil industry and profits of the wealthy than they do about our haggard environment, struggling impoverished, or war-torn world. It sickens me that I live on a continent where the terribly tragic deaths of five Amish girls pale in comparison to the thousands that have died, and continue to be killed, in Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Uganda, Israel, Yemen, and numerous other places. It discourages me that institutions including the World Bank and IMF manipulate the poor countries of the Third World in order to better the economies of already booming First World nations. It frightens me that the Christian Right repeatedly dismisses matters of social justice, preferring to argue that a right-wing government would stop abortions and gay marriage (which, not at all shockingly, they haven’t). I could go on, but I realize that it gets redundant.


It just strikes me that in the supposedly egalitarian societies of the West, equality is not a priority in many respects. While we have incorporated the ideal of parity into our laws and Charter, we rarely do in our policies or lives, and that’s simply because we’re humans and we’re living this unfair thing called life. It’s just hard for me to be reconciled with that some of the time, especially when the group that I identify myself with, Christians, seem less concerned than most other groups about those people who might be in desperate need of some love. I have a beef with capitalism for this reason; it requires people to suffer more than others in order to work. Anything that necessitates disproportionate difficulty dismays me. The wealthy do not need more money; any income past $40,000 has been scientifically proven to not make one significantly happier. If our society used all this income past the $40,000 mark and distributed it to those living under the poverty line giving them a little grace, I would rest easier. This, my friends, is what socialism might look like, which is another story entirely (and one that I need to write for Dusty in essay form). Suffice it to say that I am unsatisfied with how our society turns a blind eye to attention-worthy inequalities. In particular, I find it upsetting that it is Christians, as a result of factors varying from Calvinism to our desire to be isolated from the rest of the world, have become largely identified with the idea of capitalism. Ideas that the most skilled and money-driven in our society should live more at ease seem to promote the idea that one’s goal in life should be happiness, wealth, selfish living, and assertion of their own interests. This runs contrary to Jesus’ teachings of love and the Beatitudes, which endorse nearly opposite values. This makes me sad.

However, God is immeasurably good, and there are a zillion other things that have thrilled me as of late, despite the grim presence of midterms and work drama. Through the wonders of the internet, I have found that there are other Christians who boycott and think differently about their faith, who aren’t Donald Miller. This elates me immensely. Also on the interweb, I have enjoyed Flickr a great deal in the past while as well, and am prone to using it as a tool of procrastination far too often. There are loads of great movies coming out in the next little while, and I’ve been tipped off to several great bands as of late. And finally on the subject of the internet, I have discovered a Thanksgiving greeting that Nicole and I were repeatedly delighted by while watching American television in NYC. Enjoy. May you be thankful and Thanksgiving full.



Things Cait is Thankful For at 9:39 AM on October 8

• Jay Jay, Mom, and Dad
• God’s love and grace
• music
• human capacity to love
• stars, clouds, the sun, the moon, the northern lights, and the sky in general
• God’s word
• friends who make life lovely
• art
• skinny jeans and Chuck Taylors (and spandex)
• dancing
• trees
• warmth
• my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and second cousins
• the colour red
• laughter
• chocolate, pickles, and Gala apples
• rain
• football and athletics
• rich conversation
• blankets
• fresh starts
• knowledge, truth, and wisdom
• movies
• Christian writers and their books
• the ability to be harebrained

Cinematography

• Aurora
• Driving Lessons
• Old Joy
• The Motel
• Duality
• Obviously
• Album Leaf
• Mutual Appreciation
• Gross but Gorgeous
• Great Ripoff
• Emily Haines
• The Bridge
• Sherrybabby
• Wondrous Oblivion
• The Namesake
• Charlotte
• Wonderful
• Half Nelson
• Confetti
• I was here! I saw this exact graffiti!