Quite often, I find rules to be ridiculous. The fact that brown belts can’t be paired with black shoes, that the commencement of a play must be greeted with applause, and the way in which guys often feel obligated to open doors exclusively for girls strikes me as kind of laughable. Ben (who is back!! I missed him!!) was arguing the merits of the latter item in that list this week, not surprisingly. His only explanation for why he feels compelled to open doors and pay for girls was based on the historical practice of such acts of chivalry. In truth, I’m not deeply troubled by boys opening doors for me, though sometimes I can’t help but giggle, nor am I going to refrain from clapping for a few moments when the curtains open at the Citadel just because I find it silly, but many implicit rules that our society has adopted are more significant and bothersome. Some rules have a profound impact on how we live day-to-day, and can be both unhelpful and unhealthy, whether it’s certain discussion-worthy topics becoming taboo, our unquestioning acceptance of some forms of authority, or the increasing unacceptability of greeting an unfamiliar passerby on walks down Whyte. Often, it’s Christian-created rules that bother me the most; I think it’s limiting to when we create set ways that we worship and pray in, make sometimes excessively-defined gender roles, and avoid acknowledging that we drink/dance/play poker (etcetera!) outside of church. I think it’s simplistic to think that there are set formulas that we can teach people to facilitate their courtship practices, “save” their non-Christian friends, maintain their sexual purity, be happy, and so on. People are individuals, and few formulas in life apply to everyone. If we want a formula, the combination of prayer, Bible-reading, and community generally diminish the need for silly “Ingredients to Success” lists. God created us to be individuals, and synthetic rules might be helpful to one person, but could easily be detrimental to another.
All this is to say that I’m not fond of certain manmade rules. But more than I’d like to think, my distaste for some expectations keeps me from recognizing the importance of truly important rules. I believe that God commanded us to do things for our own good; a command to be joyful has obvious merits, and even the not-so-obviously-valuable commandment not to covet is hard to argue with. God loves us, and wants us to live the rich lives, living this life can sometimes feel like a narrow path I think. This week, in various ways, I’ve seen how important some of these guidelines are, in situations that went south because of a lack of listening to God, or blessings that comes out of abiding by His rules even when it’s annoying and inconvenient (sometimes God asks me to do things that I find bothersome; I’ve found that it’s pretty much always a good idea to listen to Him though). The idea that as Christians, we should go to church on Sundays seems so rigid and arbitrary to me, but without consistent community and learning that a church body provides, it’s so hard to live “well” in that Christian sense, I think. God’s idea of marriage, too, is an idea that I am rather keen on, but a lot of people I talk about it with struggle with the restriction of it. When people do things their own way, it’ doesn’t always go so well. He’s shown me this week that He really does know best, and that when He’s not our Lord, things can get awfully messed up awfully fast. He never created these rules out of power-thirst; He created them out of love. I know this is vague, but I’ve found it to be a comfort this week to know that even when rules seem limiting and “fun-sucking,” as Crystal would say, they’re there for a reason. Despite my tendency to frown upon strange and arbitrary synthesized rules, there are rules that were made by Someone who knows better, and while my following them might sometimes seem futile, I’d like to think that it never really is.
I’ve been journaling about apathy and pride this week, neither of which are necessarily pleasant topics, but I’ve enjoyed the catharsis that comes along with writing about things. However, as I have decided from typing the past two paragraphs, some things aren’t blogged about so easily, so I shall refrain continuing my discussion of things learned this week! It’s been one of those weeks that is hectic and stressful, but somehow pleasant nonetheless. I’d be praying about something particular that was on my mind, and would open my devotionals, or turn to a page in my Bible, only to find that what I was reading something that addressed precisely what I’d been pondering. (At one point I was wondering to God what exactly a radical life looks like, as this is something I’ve been trying to define recently, and I opened my devotionals to find that that days’ readings were titled “A Radical Life.”) Sometimes there are just too many coincidences at once for all of them to be actual coincidences; I love when God’s presence is so very tangible. Friends, too, have brightened a taxing week. As aforementioned, Ben is back, and it was so good to catch up with him (I even enjoyed a violent, gender-stereotyping, intellectually limited film, which was quite momentous).
On the other end of the friend spectrum, my wonderful co-CJ friend, who likes to remain “Anonymous” in the blogosphere, met up with me for some iced Vietnamese coffee and chai today, and just chatting with her while sitting on strange tin chairs was so delightful. It’s nice to know that she’s remained as droll, clever, and lovely as she was in the days of mocking rat-loving LA teachers and lying about her father’s career (for more than two years!). She hooked me up with a cute little book on feminism, and made a brilliant sales pitch for the anti-racism concert she’s involved in next week; the fact that I hung out with both Ben and her this week makes me laugh. Jess was THE BEST study buddy over the past few days, the kind that says nice, supportive things and eats taco chips in bed with you, but also tell you to stop looking up “pecuniary” in the thesaurus when studying is necessary. (But really, isn't pecuniary a great word? I'm endeavouring to use it more regularly.) Jess and I have a new favourite song by Of Montreal titled “Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games,” and it’s definitely one of our best romantic theme songs of all time (it’s wise to have romantic theme songs with friends; Korp and I recently selected one from our choir repertoire, and we make kissing/eyelash-batting signals whenever we sing it at practice). Plus, dinner with some of my favourite sadistic people tonight was full of laughter, blushing, and general contentment. Crystal even confirmed that she’s going to watch Star Wars, something that she’s been avoiding for nearly a year.
Basically, people make life lovely even when school attempts to make it torturously painful. I had a midterm yesterday and today, and am currently writing an essay on the evolutionary theories related rape, which is rather depressing to research as you might imagine. Fortunately, writing and researching papers is far more stimulating than reading textbooks for hours on end, and I no longer have to write about A Knight’s Tale, which turned out to be a very unwise essay topic indeed. Besides textbooks and articles about the trauma of domestic abuse, I’ve been reading Sex God and Tuesdays with Morrie this week; these are both highly recommendable books, and thus, I am recommending them to you. As an aside, I will inform you that I struggled to find a copy of Sex God in Edmonton at first, and resultingly had to phone various book stores asking “Do you have a copy of Sex God in?” I found this to be slightly mortifying. Even worse was when I went to Chapters to get the copy that I’d finally got on hold, and the clerk very clearly thought that it was some Kama Sutra-esque book, and mouthed the title (refusing to say it aloud) when confirming that this was, indeed, the book that I wanted to read. He showed me the cover, and proceeded to ring it through without making eye contact or speaking again. In fact, Sex God is a Christian book about humanity, intimacy, desires, and so on; the clerk was evidently not aware of this. I really should be off to bed before the St. Patty’s bonanza that awaits me at work tomorrow morning, so I shall bid you all goodnight! I feel I should apologize for the excessive futility of this entry. This has been my break from reading articles, and I’m clearly not in a writing groove right now (hopefully this serves as a warm up for paper-writing tomorrow). Happy St. Patty’s Day my dear Irish and not-so-Irish friends!
P.S. Virb.com is going to replace Facebook and MySpace in 5 years. For now, I have made friends with Bloc Party while the rest of you remain satisfied with Facebook. 5 years, though, and you'll all be my Virb-buddies. Mark my words.
P.P.S. Puddles and sunshine and pleasant breezes make spring one of my favourite seasons. When wearing rainboots, the vast amount of mud is exceedingly enjoyable. My puffer jacket is officially stored away until next winter. I hope you're making the most of this pleasant time of year!
P.P.P.S. Conrad Black is difficult to love. His last name describes his heart quite suitably, I think. I am glad that Jean Chrétien was mean to him.
