Seven things

A friend passed this fun list onto me and now I'm passing it on too.

Seven things to do before I die:

1. Go horseriding in the desert just east of Morrocco (the edge of the Western Sahara).
2. Learn to better live in the present and for the future.
3. Learn to love people more unconditionally (answer nabbed from Karen)
4. I want to become a strong intercessor before I take the dirt nap.
5. Make a stop-motion animation short film with Maureen.
6. Get married and multiply.
7. Swim with the turtles in Hawaii again (NOT to be confused with "sleeping with the fishes...")

Seven things I can not do:

1. Eat from a salad bar after I've seen people take food with their bare hands.
2. Cartwheels.
3. Relax on command.
4. Wake up late on Christmas morning.
5. Stop myself from touching angora when I see it.
6. Refrain sentimentality when hearing Kermit sing 'The Rainbow Connection'.
7. Cliff diving.


Seven Books I love:

1. The Bible - God
2. The Invisible War - Donald Barnhouse
3. The Problem of Pain - C.S. Lewis
4. Letters from a Nut - Ted L. Nancy
5. God, Are you There; God, do you Care? - Kay Arthur
6. Amphigory - Edward Gorey
7. Classic Fairytales - Peter Opie


Seven movies I could watch again and again:

1. Gypsy
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. Solaris (new one and the old Tarkovsky one)
4. The Happy Prince (70's cartoon film short from an Oscar Wilde story)
5. What about Bob?
6. Batman, Batman Returns (most Tim Burton films)
7. Scrooged


7 Things I love about my spouse: (or best friend if you aren't married)

Best friend it is...
1. She is compassionate.
2. She has an enormous breadth of patience.
3. She can laugh at herself.
4. She cheers me up when I'm blue.
5. Her love doesn't make demands.
6. She is enormously talented, well read and highly creative.
7. We can do anything together and have a blast (travel, watch movies, dream dreams...)

7 things I often say:

1. Faaaaaabulous! (I think I picked this one up from Ali)
2. YESSSSS! (said with wide eyed enthusiasm and a childlike agressiveness)
3. What's for lunch?
4. Ohhhhhhh Lovely! (usually exclamed when I see pretty shiny things)
5. Dad, I'm trying to cook here. (while he's pilfering from my prep work)
6. Sorry I'm deaf, can you repeat that. (if I haven't been paying attention)
7. I need attention, love me. (said to family and friends so I can get hugs)


7 People I want to join in (if you want to of course...you can consider yourself tagged) If you are not a blogger then email it back to me!

1. Maureen
2. Aleese
3. Jordan
4. Brittany
5. Amanda M.
6. Bart
7. Willard
8. Ravan
9. Natalie!
10. Joanna
(Yes, I know that I cheated and put ten.)

Cookie Mayhem

Oh my goodness this past week was a marathon of Christmas baking! Tarts, a myriad of cookies, squares, cakes... I even dreamt last night about rolling out gingerbread.

There was a mountain of spiced dough to be rolled and it was getting softer and stickier and I couldn't keep up. My hands were handicapped by gobs of gluey brown dough and the kitchen was a mess - flour everywhere and the dogs were running along the counters (manifested paranoias of mine - a dirty kitchen space, hair in cookies, dog prints in the house...). I wasn't going to make the deadline, he was going to be here any minute and I'm whelmed by molasses dough, dog dirtiness, flour... and no baking done.

I don't remember the rest of that particular dream but it closely rivals the ones I used to have about missing final exams.

Funny though, because I really enjoy cooking and have been making plates of baking up for a few friends. I usually find putzing around the kitchen really relaxing - one way I unwind - but perhaps the subconcious is telling me something :)

Getting closer to finding out where I'm going...

Drum roll please to find out which provinces are in the running for aquiring me as a new Campus for Christ staff member....

Why it is Alberta and B.C. ! That is all I know right now, I just got this little tidbit of info this morning. Inside my heart I'm really praying for Alberta but I'd go anywhere God would have me go. If it is B.C. I'd be in Vancouver or Abbostford (aka Vancouver :) and finally be near my buddy Aleese. That would definately be a bonus.

ALBERTA?

OR

BRITISH COLUMBIA?

STAY TUNED

TCC Christmas Banquet

Here is a pic of Mom, Dad and I at the Terwillegar Community Church banquet last night. It was an awesome evening of meeting new people, visiting old friends, and I even got to take part in a little drama production. It's so good to get plugged into a church after leaving my network of friends in Saskatoon - it is beginning to feel like home.

I always forget how much I love Christmas until it comes around to remind me. I guess I enjoy Christmas so much for a few of reasons. Firstly, because it invites intense reflection and celebrates Jesus' birth. And secondly, there is so much love to be shared with others and this is a time of year when people tend to make time just to enjoy each other.

Walk the Line

I saw the new Johnny Cash movie recently and I enjoyed it. I'm a Cash fan and I like Joaquin Pheonix as an actor so what is not to like? It was a great character study of Cash and it didn't shy away from his mortal struggles with guilt, drugs, and regret - and it didn't glorify them either. The story was a typical bio-pic narrative, complete with appropriate familial flashbacks, but the acting and overall essence of the film was really quite poignant. It got me to thinking...

There was something beautiful about his life, or at least how it is represented in media, that speaks to the hope of Christ through redemption. There was a transparency about him, - a kind of unpretentious humanness and genuine humility. No one is too far gone to receive God's grace, not even a rock bottom, drug addicted, rock star. New life is made possible, through Jesus, out of the ashes of a heart that cries out to Him.

Here is a link to his last music video.* !click here! It is a Nine Inch Nails cover but rather than being an anthem to rage he's played it as a kind of memorial, like his own eulogy speaking to regret and redemption. He attests his empire as something unimportant, inherently broken, and directs his hope to Jesus. I love the end of it with the montage of clips climaxing in a rush of snapshots collected from Cash's past and present and interspliced with old film stock of Jesus being crucified. I think it is a cool video.

*What I should mention about this Cash video is the reference to Italian and Northern renaissance painting, particularly still life painting. A discourse was built around still life painting, specifically work involving food and perishables that directed the viewer to a confrontation with mortality and the vanity of life. Numerous painters created narratives out of fruit, freshly killed game, human skulls, goblets full of wine, and open books of literature to further their point - life is rich, full of desire, and beautiful but it has a definite end. This Johnny Cash video was shot with the same aesthetic as these old paintings and makes a heavy handed reference to the same ideas circulating within the culture which created those rusty, old, renaissance images. Time has passed, hundreds of years in fact, but concerns about mortality remain the same.