Saran Wrap and Waterfalls

Warning: Slippery When Wet.
Imagine with me, if you will. I'd also ask you to close your eyes, but that wouldn't work so well, since I am approaching you through the written, visual media. Therefore, imagine. Imagine that you are somewhere in the Rocky Mountains and that you've found this wonderful little swimming hole in a deep, deep gorge on the side of a mountain. The path to the picturesque little piece of heaven is steep and very narrow, but it's worth the trip: the water in the pool is fed by a beautiful cascading glacier waterfall that spills over the ridge above into this tiny basin. Just behind the gently pouring water, however, is a gurgling & gushing hot spring, whose steaming waters mix perfectly with the glacial waterfall for a beautiful temperature.

So, having found this amazing wonder, you decide to spend the afternoon there frolicking in bliss. As the hours pass, you begin to notice the formation of some pretty ugly clouds overhead, and as the sun begins to be veiled by the black, ominous masses, you decide that it would probably be a prudent decision to head back down the mountain before all of your clothes on the beach get soaked.

The sky cracks and growls with the impending downpour as you finish drying your hair & quickly tie that last shoelace. You take one last photo of the spot so that you can show your friends this amazing little getaway for a future visit, and as you just get your camera safely packed away, it begins.

At first, it starts out as a few drops, and then it progresses to a light drizzle, but by the looks of those clouds, you know that this is by far the nicest part of the oncoming storm. You look up the long, steep & narrow pathway to the top of the ravine & decide that you had better get a move on before your only way up turns into a tiny rivulet. So, up you go. The pine needles under foot are still dry, and the roots from the surrounding trees provide a good natural staircase, but as you survey the ground before you, you notice that those little patters from the raindrops are becoming more frequent—and larger. One last look back at the pool makes you cringe: The surface of the water on the other side of the pool looks as if it was boiling, and the white sheet of rain causing it was ripping across the surface towards you. Desperately scrambling up the tiny path, you try your best to make as much of a headway as you can before the fury of the thunderstorm hits, but you only manage to make a few hurried steps until you could swear that there was less water falling on your head under that waterfall than there was right now.

You were smart enough to put on your hiking poncho, so your pack and your body remains dry, but everything that was not directly under your rain gear is now thoroughly drenched. Those nice, crunchy pine needles & sturdy roots have disappeared. They have been replaced by a greasy mash of needle-filled mud, which proves to be Teflon's biggest competitor—or so it feels. The roots, which used to be a sought-after bastion of safety, are now avoided like the plague, in fear that a poorly placed step could cause you to slide 20 or 30 feet back down the steep trail. Your ascent has now become the dreaded "one step forward, two steps back" routine as—without fail—every time you shift your weight to that newly placed foot, the mud underneath, now quite like black margarine, smears beautifully until enough of the goo accumulates behind your foot to provide sufficient mass & friction in order to bear your weight. The higher you go, the trees become increasingly sparse, preventing you from using their trunks as footholds & handholds. After what seems like an eternity, you finally reach a narrow crevice, up which is the only way out. The walls, being sheer and smooth, are just far enough apart that you cannot use them as braces in your ascent. The mud here is relatively shallow, and you can see the smooth, slick shale in patches where the rushing water has washed away what used to be a fine layer of silt. You attack the smooth rock with your muddy boots, but to no avail: each step you take only lets the slippery surface taunt you more as it revels in its mastery. Whether it's one step up the slab or three, the result is always the same. Without fail, either by a loose patch of gravel, or a fresh gush of mud from the pouring water above, you manage to lose your footing and slide ever so "gracefully" down to the base of the now quite clean shale face. What makes the experience all the more rewarding is that every time you make it up a little farther, you have come to realise that the inevitable loss of footing sends you sliding down the steep valley even further.

It has been literally more than a dozen times since you have seen where the stone face once again meets muddy soil, and due to your frequent, quick returns to this location, the middle of the approach has now worn much of the mud away, revealing more bare, smooth rock in an ugly, mocking grin. Your knees have been bleeding for so long that whatever is left of your poncho is now beginning to stick to the swollen joints. Your hands have long been numb from the continual abuses of both the frigid rain and from the repetitive blunt traumas associated with your rock adventures. It has come to the point where you really don't think that the beast is scalable in these conditions, but looking up at the sky tells you that these clouds have no intention of letting the pathway dry out even for a moment. You are cold. You're tired. You're more wet than you have ever cared to be in your whole life. Every muscle in your body is aching either from exhaustion or from damage—or, as in most cases, both. You have no way of making a shelter, because you brought no rope & because the terrain is too steep to really make anything that will truly shelter you anyways. You are now kicking yourself for not bringing that book of matches, but the stupid weatherman told you that there was only a 30% chance of thunderstorms today—and we all know that 30% never means that it'll actually rain. You are very aware that if you don't get out of this weather soon then you will start getting severe hypothermia. The stupid, frustrating rock has made you so miserable that you almost want to cry when thinking of trying it again. You have to ask yourself, though: What do you want—and do you really want it? What will you do, what will you put yourself through to make sure that you actually get it?



This is how I currently feel in my Christian walk. I am frustrated by what little effort I am presently trying to make to overcome the little bumps & upsets that are quite inseparable from striving after a Christ-centred life. I originally started writing the above narrative illustration over a week ago, but many many things have crept into my daily drivellings that have distracted the discourse's development. However, in doing so, many many developments have occurred which will inevitably contribute to the content of this entry. I will start with my original thoughts & continue with the developments afterwards. Shall we? Let's.



It has been fifteen days since I have been tied to a relatively stable, obligatory duty. That being said, I really haven't had any drive to go around and do anything until school starts again on the 8th of September. Does that mean that I have been doing nothing with myself for the past 2 weeks? Quite the contrary. I have successfully filled my schedule to the same level of busy-ness that I previously experienced while in school. How come? Well, I have reached the conclusion that explains my tendency to fill my schedule to the brim, and it goes something like this: I do not allow myself to kick back & relax because of my old habit of using busy-ness to escape from the reality of my life. Being busy is easy. Everyone needs an extra hand once in a while, and when you're advertising that you want to get involved, they will call you on it. It's a lot easier—at least for me, because of how I grew up—to offer help & to become overly busy than it is for me to look inward & address those things in my life which need to be looked after.

Due to the lack of structure that comes with the ceasing of an obligatory duty, I no longer have an easy time getting around to spending any really time with the Lord. For me, this really, really sucks, especially since I just started back up in reading my Bible & praying. The amount of worship songs running through my head have now dwindled very much. I am also becoming more prone to the "darker thoughts" which further seems to disable me in my other thought processes, especially my thoughts on self-efficacy, on self-concept and on the nature of others' motivation(s).

So, how does this resemble the above story? Well, it seems that as much as I try to actually get back to a proper and disciplined communion with God, as much as I try to spend time with Him who I most desire to be with, I seem to just not be able to do it. Due to my free time, I end up doing other things & saying to myself, "I'll spend time with God later," which never seems to actually come to fruition. Rather, I just end up doing a whole whack of "good things," and although I do find these activities highly rewarding, I know that they are not the things that I should be letting trump my one-on-one time spent with the Lord. But they do, and it really, really sucks.



Interim of Progression


The past few days have been interesting to me. I have spent much time with some people that I really haven't seen for months—and in several cases, years. What surprised me the most about the whole time spent with my old friends was how very awkward I felt being around them. I felt as if I was an intruder—perhaps not unwelcome, but definitely not a true part of the group. It felt so weird being around these people with whom I used to interact very well, and with whom I used to have good conversations, and with whom I used to have quite fulfilling friendships. It all seemed to have changed within the past year or so, and this was most apparent with one of my more valued friends.

I won't get into the details of how or why I feel that this friend was a member of a few individuals who didn't totally shun me throughout the fallout of the "joys" of last year & before, but because they actually stood by me at the times of my life in that era where I felt the most alone, the most rejected & the most hated by Christians everywhere, they have earned a great deal of respect & honour in my sight. However, for some reason that I still have no understanding of, I have felt very alienated from this friend over the past 10 months. The other night, as I bade farewell to them, I had the feeling that that would probably be the last time that I would probably ever hang out with them ever again. That thought saddened me a great deal, and it actually ended up with me getting a little lump in my throat—something that has never happened to me before when thinking about losing the friendship of another person. What is all the more sad is that I feel paralysed about doing anything to prevent it: pretty much all of my attempts to get a hold of my friend to talk have ended up being futile, so I now have become so discouraged that I feel it is worthless to even try any more (note that this perception is probably very coloured by the resurgence of my "darker thoughts" as noted above, but still taking that in mind, I have a difficult time seeing any of my efforts actually paying off.).

Because of these recent experiences, I have half decided to give up trying to be people's friends. The amount of time I expend on trying to get involved in people’s lives, when considering the amount of how effective I feel I am at achieving that goal, makes me think that I am really, really wasting my time. It's like spending a full day to find that loonie you dropped on the ground in that huge field down the road: sure, you'll spend a bit of time looking for it, but you need to know when to cut your losses. People are gay, but Christians, I find, are worse. Why? Because they're plastic & insecure, which turns them into really huge assholes. Judgementalism & "holier than thou" attitudes disgust me. I have another friend who has been called a non-Christian because he is struggling with the whole concept of the Trinity, with faith and with the mind-bogglingness of Christ being both man & God. The truth of the matter is that his biggest hang-ups centre around Christianity & its pretentiousness than truly about the tenets of his faith.

I hate the presence of the church's need for people to feel that they must have it together & with the church's demand (however unwritten & contradictory to the fundamental foundations of our faith) that every Christian must be perfect in order to be considered a good Christian & how that you cannot be a servant of the Most Holy God if you mess up here & there. If that were true, I know that I most definitely would never be able to call myself a Christian, and I reckon that you wouldn't be able to do so yourself. Why is it that contemporary Christianity has turned its foundational beliefs on its head & why has it adopted the Pharisaical beliefs of "earning your way to heaven by doing all the right things" instead of submitting to the freeing power of the cross, and accepting the fact that we are all sinners yet under the freeing grace apportioned to us by Christ? Why is it that almost everywhere I go, with all the people who are dear to me & whom I care about deeply—why is it that they are all becoming disillusioned with Christianity? How come the church is failing its members? Why are we demanding things that are contrary to the Bible from ourselves? What is with all this Plastic Christianity?


Plastic Christianity


I am very tired of Plastic Christianity & I am no longer going to tolerate it. That being said, I do not think that many of you will hear from me directly for a good long while—unless you approach me. I care very much where my friends & where my colleagues are at in their lives—socially, spiritually & internally, yet my patience for enduring the shiny, crinkly coating that Christians put on top of their true selves has reached its limit. If you want to talk to me, talk to me. Those of you who really really know me will appreciate the fact that I will literally drop everything I am doing to go & have coffee etc. with you if you do actually want to talk.


Conclusion


I'm tired of sitting here at the base of this slippery stone. I have decided to beat it regardless of the cost. Christ is too valuable for me to sit here & rot in the rain. I don't personally like wearing plastic myself, but if I find any on my person, it's being left here at the base of this stone so that it will no longer hinder me in my progression towards my one true goal. I choose Christ; I choose to go for the goal & I choose to overcome. What will you do? The rock isn't going anywhere & the rain will never stop. If you want to come with me—as I would very much like youth do—then you're going to need to leave your plastic behind as well. Suffer the synthetics no more: Christ calls us to be genuine. Let us live that way as we eagerly search after him.




Oh, and call me sometime.

Psalm

Jesus Christ, ruler of the nations,
ruler of the mightiest stronghold, ruler of the lowliest creature,
I proclaim your majesty.
Be lifted up in praise & adoration, my King,
for you are too good
to be adequately spoken of in any man's speech.
I call out to you in submission and in thanksgiving.
I will ever praise your name & speak of your glorious presence.
My soul within me longs to see your face, to experience the fullness of your glory,
to share in the greatness of your joy.
It is you who heals the weak, you who raises the lowly,
you who shelters those in a desolate wasteland.
Because of you, all of creation does sing. Because of you, I am made fit to be in your presence;
I can stand in the courtyard of my king with no fear.
My soul bursts forth within me, shouting out the greatness of my Lord.
My song I sing is new to my lips, yet it has been sung for generations.
For generations have your people extolled the king of kings
because of your endless, boundless mercy & love.
Faithful is your name; longsuffering is your nature.
You care for the weakest, lowest creature & it is you who brings the broken close.
You clothe the empty with righteousness & laughter fills the hearts of your children: their hearts ring forth in celebration of the goodness of their Father.
In my hands, I hold that which I cannot keep.
In your hands I rest, for no one can be taken from your grip.
As the birds break forth in jubilant melody at the rising of the sun, so my soul within me sings your praise.
Though clouds may come and the wind may whip, my song will ever be sung before you.
My heart will not be dampened, my soul will not be silent before the Lord, my saviour and king.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Circus...

  It is amazing how much one little choice or how one little outcome can dramatically affect an individual. Over the past few weeks, I was becoming increasingly stressed about my future, owing to a certain class that I was trying to get enrolled in. What the content of this class is largely inconsequential. The important thing about it, rather, is that it is one of those "gateway" prerequisite courses, which opens up the possibility of several higher level (in this case, 400-level) classes. What makes this particular case so weighty is that my program requires at least 12 400-level credits--twice the normal university mandate for an undergraduate degree. Furthermore, my faculty only offers 18 400-level credits, and this class that I was trying to get into is a prerequisite for 9 of those credits.

  Okay, so this gateway class is a creative writing course, and the only way a student can be enrolled in it is to submit a writing portfolio, which the faculty peruse at their leisure in order to determine whether or not you meet the appropriate calibre of literary technique, skill, poise--yadda yadda yadda--to justify spending time on teaching you how to write...better?

  What it had come down to in this case was a matter of timing. Decision on student enrolment for this creative writing class was supposed to be completed some time in the latter half of July. And, as July progressed, waned & eventually died altogether, I was becoming all the more aware that I hadn't received any confirmation for being in that class. The first business day in August was yesterday, so I had assumed that--since I was not already enrolled--taking the "worst case scenario" disaster control would probably be the most prudent course of action. That being decided, I immediately began weighing my options: if I was not accepted in this creative writing class, my 400-level credits would be limited to 9, which is not enough to graduate with a major in that concentration. Therefore, I could either a.) switch into an honours program in that major, giving me access to the Honours Tutorial class, which, being a 400-level course, would fulfil my graduation requirements, or b.) drop that major. The second option was much more favourable, as it would also provide the added benefit of letting me graduate a whole year earlier than I was planning, making me that much less in debt & that much closer to actually starting "real life."

  So, here I am, stuck in the middle of summer school being bombarded by exams and assignments aplenty, already highly stressed about doing well on those & this drops into my lap: what the heck am I going to be doing this fall? This year? I immediately began thinking of the shortcuts I had considered earlier in the season regarding how I could woo the university calendar into compressing my program back into one year--or less. (as the only reason I do have two years left is caused by the retarded scheduling of my required classes in this, my sacrificial major). "Today, after class," I told myself, "I'll sit down & get this done. I mean, school's starting in a month, eh? I have to get something figured out before then..." So, here I go, contemplating this alter plan to my future and seeing all the great highlights of being done a year earlier--but also the downside of losing my major. I was at a bit of an impasse, for the benefits of both held the drawbacks of the other in perfect balance. I think that just not knowing which way the coin would fall was causing the most stress: if I was denied access to this one class, then I'd be tickled pink to be done a year sooner; whereas if I was accepted, I could either continue on my previously laid plan, or still pursue this new, compressed course of action. ...it kinda reminds me of another area in my life that I need to find an outcome for pretty darned soon... Anyways, that's a side note & a digression.

  And to stop making a short story long, I today checked my enrolment status at the same time as I started working on my schedule-changing. I actually had assumed--and had come to the conclusion--that I wasn't accepted. This became apparent when I completely overlooked the fact that I was indeed enrolled in the crucial class until I started figuring out what time-slots I had free to schedule alternate classes. "Wow," I said to myself, double-checking, just to be sure that some guy in a flowing robe wasn't playing Jedi mind-tricks on me, "Cool."

  How do you spell relief? Inflate a balloon--but don't tie it--and write the word "STRESS" on it. Then let go. Or, you could get a dyslexic who seems to only have trouble with 'e's to write out "er life" for ya. Though, you could also scribble down an 'r', 'l', an 'f' and throw in a couple of vowels for spice. Take yer pick. Just don't pop the balloon: that'll throw stress all over the place ;)