Dangerous Business Since 1979

I never get tired of this mashup....all that nostalgia all rolled into one (and makes you want to sway, no?) 

<3

shameless friendship

One of my favourite things about Jesus Christ is the way he made friends. 

One of my favourite things about being a disciple of this socially unconventional chap is that I get to follow his lead.  There is an unrivaled simplistic delight in inventing a friendship with someone who isn't expecting it.  Even better when you're not expecting it either.

Ruthi, I'm gonna reference the quote you last posted here, and say that I think it's super tragic that our insecurities and perceived "incompleteness" or "voids" so often cripple or stunt us socially.  I think this is one of the enemy's favourite devices for getting us to prevent God's will from happening and his blessings from flowing, most especially within the community/family.  I was sooo shy when I was little, and I remember just literally being afraid of making friends with people, afraid of failing them or letting them down.  I hate that we, even as grown-ups, and even as those who claim to be being sanctified in Christ, are still so poisoned by the cultural conditioning that keeps us from honest and unashamed relationships where God's will is the unified focus, and not our own acceptance or affirmation. 

"He must increase; I must decrease." 

One of my best treasures in this life has been my bizarre love of the awkward -- I literally bask in socially awkward moments, and welcome and encourage (and very often instigate) peculiar instances that I like to think momentarily challenge others' perceptions of the "socially acceptable."  I hope at the end of every day that someone I encountered -- even a stranger -- will have had to endure a moment wherein they questioned a social norm or felt somehow freed by having experienced the unusual.  And Logan, I don't mean this in the way that you like to do to me, where you straight-up try to embarrass someone by making them out to be a pedophile or something (ha-ha..) :P  .. but I mean in nice, swell ways.  Like when someone says or does something super embarrassing in front of you, help them enjoy it like you both just watched Jim Carrey do it on The Truman Show, or find the Truth in it and be humbled together in laughter over your silly human state.  Even just a kind smile or a mischeivous wink is a glimpse of freedom to a worried heart, and a taste of freedom for a gracious heart.  But awkwardness is not just meant to be lovingly stemmed -- oh no -- it is meant to be lovingly bestowed as well!  hahah ;D 

One of my favourite friendships began just like this:

jen & shaina walking by library in empty A-building, random guy in rad brown hat walking towards them, all systems go for a typical pedestrian pass
shaina: *makes direct eye contact with unwitting stranger, points at his head approvingly*  "brown hat" 
jen: *without skipping a beat, in the style of a younger brother at the mall* "she likes you."
random guy in rad brown hat: *doubly confused expression that reads "simultaneously flattered on separate levels while also unsure whether to assume he's been made fun of, complimented, or handed the key to an equally unexpecting girl's heart compliments of her dink of a best friend"*

That moment of nonsense was the foundation of a friendship between myself and Aaron that will outlive us both.  And he's so shy that I'm not sure we ever would've become friends if I hadn't felt uninhibitably compelled to state my enjoyment of his hat in the most awkward way possible.  

I realize this isn't a super profound example, but it's one of my favourites nonetheless.  I think we're all going along in our daily lives, feeling like weenies and wondering if anything we're doing or saying is mattering to anyone or accomplishing anything, and I think we're all so often caught up in that end of things that we're missing out on a lot of opportunities to throw God's joyful freedom from these fetters in the paths of others when they're least expecting it.  I was hosting a performance evening/open mic last winter with this fellow Taylor, who had at one point in the proceedings mysteriously produced a pot of glitter -- it was just so bizarre that he casually had a pot of glitter on him, that my imagination was spurred into a microphone musing between acts that it would be fun to just carry glitter around..and randomly shower people with it (my exact words may have been "throw it in people's faces")..or like if you passed a surly person at the grocery store, to just toss a fistfull back over your shoulder..  I felt like it would just be so ludicrous and magical that it would really help other people through the monotony or frustration of daily life. (for a second anyways, till they realized they looked like they just survived a Lady Gaga holocaust and would have to spend a week de-glittering)   Anyways, I mention this, because a) it makes me laugh to think of pockets full of secret glitter waiting to insta-snowglobe unsuspecting sour old ladies, and more importantly, b) it's my clever way of parallelling my point with over-the-top imagery.  

What would Jesus think about me comparing his calling of the twelve or his conversation with the woman at the well to throwing glitter in people's faces?  I'm not sure.  But I feel like the levels of "socially unacceptable" and "super cool" inherent in each are working in my favour.  Also, I'm of course not really talking about whipping glitter in someone's eyes, I'm talking about setting yourself aside in the simple moments that you are encountering your brothers and sisters (and utter strangers in case you don't count them among the siblings)(which you should, shame on you), and being a vessel, a channel, for God's unusual/socially awkward/embarrassingly honest/playground-simple friendship to pour generously and unexpectedly through.

Therefore let us be conscious -- how many times in each of our days do we forego opportunities to bear up, or affirm, or invite those around us?  How many life-altering friendships are we missing out on by telling ourselves it's awkward/impossible/impractical/embarrassing?  And how many times are we casting off our silly shame and loving each other unexpectedly on the prompting of a God we are listening to?  We are all geeky failures who don't know what to say and who are absolutely right in assuming we don't deserve the love and attention of each other...so at least we have that in common.  Sounds like fertile friendship soil to me.

<3

what do you think of this quote?

Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there. - Eric Hoffer

"if you have come to help me, you are wasting your time... but if you have come because your liberation is bound up in mine, let us work together" - lila watson

someone asked me how i've seen God moving in my life this past year...

and it took me a really long time to answer...
in the end i rambled... said something about 'holding on'
and then talked about honesty.

"when we speak the truth, we free those around us to be honest"

but in the end, i think that's so much the place that i'm in -- trying to be honest.
with myself and others.
and i'm still only scratching the surface...
trying to 'unload my backpack' - be honest with the burdens and doubts i'm carrying.

"forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in" - leonard cohen.

but its been encouraging to see people on their journeys...
to see the joy and the struggles.
to question my own place.
and to maybe process some of the questions....

thanks for being encouragement and inspiration to me.

the beginning of the middle

First post -- okay -- are you ready, guys? 

I think I am..seatbelts..check..cozy beverages..yep..chill tunes on low..good to go.

Seeing as how this place was semi-inspired by the old joint-blog with the brothers of days gone by, I feel it somehow appropriate to log a similar "first post."  I believe the one on JFTK was a literal copy & paste of the msn conversation in which Jamison & I came up with it -- and here, for history (and nostalgia)'s sake, I will record the founding events of the velvet lounge.....

It was a dark and stormy night...only not stormy at all, and in fact pretty miraculously pleasant for a mid-October evening...when Ruthi and Logan and Shaina, at the apex of their delicious reunion day together, piled into the Maramma (<--the maroon gramma car, for reference's sake that will momentarily become relevant).  Off they jaunted, through the zany one-way streets of Swift Current, past the Tim Horton's they meant to stop at, back around to said Tim's where the token cozy beverages were procured, and then beyond the borders of experience, reason, and the very vicinity in which "life makes sense"...drifting dreamily down darkened highways, towards the place that maybe made the least sense, all things considered.  

Soft serenades by Band of Horses and the Bravest Ghost wound around, beneath layers of reminiscence and conversation, stirred only by contented sighs and Ruthi's bare feet, dangling and dipping from her perch on the couch -- I mean, the back seat.  And here, in a magical mutual moment, was granted to us: the velvet lounge.  (I guess I'll have to pull back from the mystical description for a second to digress and describe that the glamourous Maramma contains luxurious bonus features such as velvetty soft plush interior, which often evokes sentiments of friends' parents' outdated basements, and that despite its sporty 2-door facade, it houses seating that is dangerous to the sleep-inclined...)   In any case, there we found ourselves, in a beautiful maroon haze, a cozy little place where our hearts found rest at the same time they were transported to old and new and altogether nonexistent destinations.  (I'm pretty sure I'll be referring to Millar as Narnia for the remainder of my acquaintanceship with it.) (Logan, this makes me feel that I need to visit it when there is snow..preferably snow falling in fluffy chunks from the sky..you bring the Tumnus, I'll bring the Turkish Delight?)  

Oh friends, here is where I get cheesy and filled with love, and pause to tell you that on numerous occasions today (the day after this delightful happening) I had to just stop and simply say, "thank you so much, God."  I want you guys to know that, because though the day we had together seemed so short and we wished so hard for it to tarry on, in my heart and memory it was richer and fuller than many solid weeks I've spent of late.  Thank you so mega much for being my darling honest fearless friends, pouring out God's small and simple blessings through the sharing of the things you love, the things he loves you through, because in doing so you have loved me and each other so well :)   I'm so glad we share friendship(s) among one another that seem to exist outside of time and geography, it makes my heart happy when the Spirit bonds strongly to itself in its "separate homes" despite the distance that may appear to separate them...if that makes sense?  I hope it does.  It's something I like to see and I hope you see and appreciate it too :) 

And that is a part of "the beginning of the middle" I think -- the beginning of the middle of our peculiar comeradery.  Here we go.  I pray that this funny forum will be very like the physical "velvet lounge" and that it will provide a space for our spirits (for the Spirit) to converge and mingle in that nourishing casual way it seems to like to between us "kinsfolk"  ;D 

 <3 <3 <3