T Minus 10

For every thing

Turn, turn, turn

There is a season

Turn, turn, turn

There is a time

For every purpose under heaven

There are ten days left in this year, and oh, what a year has two thousand six been for this little lucid elusion. I have seen many things, gone many places and undertaken many activities. Here's a short list:

• rode in a schoolbus to Vancouver
• got over $100 in free diesel
• fed homeless people
• photographed a couple of my friends riding a polar bear
• took a class that I shouldn't have been able to take
• partook in a professional theatre production as the second assistant stage manager
• learned to operate a double-purchase fly system
• received university training on how to mop
• acted in a semi-professional theatre production
• Created and executed a sophisticated lighting design project for the same semi-pro production
• worked full-time as a professional cook
• graduated from university
• moved to the Crowsnest Pass
• towed a large chunk of floating dock across a stretch of Crowsnest Lake, even partially in a snowstorm
• learned to read Mercator coordinates on Canadian topo maps
• climbed a dozen trees
• climbed a dozen rock-faces
• climbed a dozen mountains (peaking two)
• slept in puddles
• slept in snow
• slept on buried foamies
• slept & woke up with frost on my sleeping bag
• tore a ligament
• touched a 2,000 year old tree
• pushed a tree 3 feet in diameter into a stream
• floated down a river
• forded half a dozen streams
• tried to cross a river in spring flood stage alone
• tried to cross a river in flood stage with 5 other people behind me
• drank from melting glaciers
• drank from mountain streams
• explored two caves
• got lost in a cave filled with ice
• saw two guys crawl into a cave behind a waterfall
• saw bears from 20 feet away
• saw moose from 8 feet away
• saw deer graze 5 feet away from me
• ran around in a field filled with wind turbines
• got stopped by cops for driving 40 over the speed limit, and ending up not having to pay a dime for it.
• ate barbequed eel
• ate silk worms
• ate Utah honeysuckle, wild strawberries, huckleberries, Saskatoons, dandelions, elderberries, mountain sorrel, spruce buds, thimble berries, raspberries & other wilderness delights.
• grew a beard
• shaved my head
• saw a friend accidentally melt chocolate all over someone else's digital camera
• saw God provide water for a group of 20 kids
• learned to ascend ropes
• instructed over 100 kids in rock climbing
• led over 100 kids on over 80 km of mountain hikes.
• climbed a communications tower
• got into a weather-proofed mountaintop radio station
• peed off the top of a mountain
• sat in a hot spring that felt as warm as pee
• bought a car
• drove to the States for gas
• drove almost 300 km just to eat a hamburger
• drove to a farmer's field just to take a picture of a tractor
• drove 500 km to drink tea with friends
• got a new pair of hiking boots for free
• rode on a motorcycle for 500 km
• rode on a dirtbike up a mountain trail
• rode over a mountain pass on a quad
• went 4x4ing in a bus
• stepped in cow poo
• covered myself in ashes
• ate a roast from a hole in the ground
• made a shield & used it to defend myself
• captured a woman
• insulated a building
• shot people with my watergun from a rooftop
• shot people with my watergun from a bench
• saw waterbombers "shoot" a forest fire with water
• saw a natural gas plant get caught in a forest fire (it smelled a lot like sulphur)
• managed a restaurant kitchen that sold over $100,000 in food each week
• helped transplant a church
• switched churches
• researched prayer
• wrote a script
• quit my job
• remained unemployed for 8 weeks
• talked to a friend in the middle of the African jungle
• became addicted to iced capps
• catered a weekend for about 100 people
• got hired by the only company who would give me the time of day: McDonald's

Quite a list, no? From missions work to school to mountain wonderland experiences to work to unemployment to writing to McDonald's. Did I ever expect such events to happen as of January 1, 2006? Not on your life.

I wonder what will happen next year? The countdown is beginning. T minus ten days and counting...

Check id Out

Researchers & scientists who support the theory of Intelligent Design (ID) have finally got around to becoming legitimate scientists & researchers. How? Why? You ask. Well, up until recently, ID was a theory that produced no empirically based, scientific research. No lab findings, no supported literature, nothing. All that will soon be changing with a new research facility operating in the Seattle area whose primary mandate is to produce scientific findings which support the theory of ID. Well.... they've got my attention; I don't know about yours.

Check out the NewScientist article on them here.

Nineveh-negar

Sometimes I just want to drive.

The air is quick, crisp and fluid as it whirls around a vehicle trekking over destination-free pavement. Nothing is quite like the pleasant emptiness, the personal solace of an empty highway. So open, so free. It's a breath of fresh air.

Sometimes I just want to recline.

A fireside chair, double-stuffed with plushy goodness. The sweet melody of faint music gracing the air as a subtle fragrance. The crackle and flicker of the warm fire, radiating comfort and light while shadows dance with glee across the motionless room. It is where friends gather, thoughts played with, company enjoyed. Like a thick sweater on a chilled, winter day. It is comfort.

My body has been aching with the stiff-jointed protest of illness over the past couple of days. Sleep has largely evaded my grasp, as it feels much like I've been eating (breathing) nothing but a constant ribbon of sandpaper every second of each passing day. Not my idea of bliss, let me tell you.

What makes this worse is that my head has become filled with a dense fog, making things difficult to remember, and causing my observational insight to lose much of its lustre. Alas. Not many more moons before this sickness leaves for the hills... Unless I've contracted something really worth talking about, and if I have, rest assured, my next blog entry would be coming from some sort of nurse-o'erseen pasture.

Present physicality aside, I've been learning much over the past two weeks. A lot of it has to do with faith and my responsibility with it. To put it another way, I've been arguing with God over what's best for me for a while now. Our ideas of what's best for me haven't really been lining up lately, and it's difficult to accept. Here's the story:

Prelude to a Dream

Six weeks ago, I handed in my notice of resignation to the one job I've had since graduating university. I had been working at that job for no more than seven weeks, and I had already come to loathe my occupation.

The work wasn't really that bad: I was assistant managing a high-volume, upper-tier (ish) kitchen. Pretty standard and straightforward stuff, if you know what you're doing. What made it bad were the relationships there. As an assistant manager, I was told by my boss that I would have just as much authority in the kitchen as any other member of the management staff, and that I should act accordingly. Unfortunately, my fellow managers didn't seem to get that memo, and within a manner of hours after my first shift, I had been called aside and told to back down, fall in line & do what I was told. That would've been fine by me--if the things that I was being told to do were good choices that would improve productivity and efficiency or even boost employee morale. Turned out that I didn't have that much luck, and as soon as I "fell in line," my co-managers began treating me as a staff-member, ordering me around & making decisions without me, telling me that I would be told something if I needed to know about it. All in all, not a very good way to work as a team. So I quit.

Doing the Impossible

I had decided to put in my resignation while having had three job interviews lined up and ready to go right after my last day of work. If those positions didn't pan out, I had already 4 or 5 other available positions in the hot and desperate economy that is Alberta. Never once did I expect that I would end up unemployed for any length of time. That would be impossible, right? Turns out that the impossible actually does happen, as the first three interviews I had ended with "Thanks for your interest, but another candidate has come along who more closely fits what we are looking for."

My back up plan? Disappeared without even so much as a flash. I didn't get a phone call, letter or e-mail from those applications--or the next 25 applications/resumes that I sent out over the next two weeks. Nothing was seeming to work.

All the while in my unemployment frenzy, I began seriously pursuing a project that was sparked in me from a conversation I had in August. One of the counsellors that I had been working with at Crowsnest Lake Bible Camp approached me after one evening's campfire and asked me what prayer was & how it worked. As best as I could, I tried to give her an answer in what little time we had & with what little time I had to really consider the question. After stumbling through the "basics," I admitted that prayer was a really big and difficult topic to describe in the amount of time that we had. I promised her, though, that I would get her an answer sometime after the camp season was over, and, as the man of his word I am, I began looking into what the Bible had to say about prayer in September. Seeing as I wanted to give her a complete answer--not just a teaser--I decided to do my best at discovering all there was to prayer through a Biblical study. What I didn't expect, though, was in fact how much there was to know and learn. In my newly found free time, between applying for jobs, I found myself pouring over this project of prayer research & applying what I was discovering to my prayer life.

Reality Check?

That was when I began to worry. It was now 3 weeks since my last hour of employment, and I still had yet to find any gainful employment. I consulted God about this, and let him know my fears of not being able to pay either my rent or my bills. I wanted a job, and I wanted one right away, yet instead of giving me what I wanted, he told me to wait & to seek him.

WHAT?! That was my response. I mean, how in the world did he expect me to pay my bills or even get a job if I wasn't actively searching or trying to rectify the problem. He told me that He'd take care of it if I sought him first and foremost (actually, wholly was what he wanted) for the following ten days. I said "Deal."

Ten days went by, and there was no job waiting for me at the finish line. Nothing. Instead, during the week and a half stint of actively not pursuing employment, I had been a.) spending more time with God, and b.) spending a lot more time researching this prayer thing, coming to a point of actually starting to formally write a response (which now is turning into a book. As of this posting, I've only got 6700 words into the first chapter, which I think may be somewhere around the 10% mark). As a result, I've begun to feel a pressing drive to finish this work on prayer--but, writing a book doesn't pay the bills!

I verbalised this to God a few days ago, saying that he had promised me a job after the ten days. He said that he did no such thing. I said, "Oh yeah?!" and whipped out my prayer journal to go & prove God wrong. Hmm... Oops. Turned out that I was the one who had been wrong. What he promised was that he would take care of my financial situation. He didn't say how at the get go, but he made it awfully clear to me throughout the ten days.

My Nineveh

For the past two weeks, I have been spending a good portion of my time in the dining area of McDonald's reading, researching and writing. Every day I'm there, I see at least one person apply & also immediately get hired. Because of this, I knew that were I to apply, I would also get a job. But I didn't want to get a job at McDonald's. I didn't spend 5 years and get $40,000 in debt just to end up asking if you would like to super-size your drink and fries for 69 cents. The last thing I wanted to do was to reinforce the age-old BA grad stereotype, but even after the ten days of waiting were up, the dozen applications I sent out all fell on deaf ears. What's more depressing is that the two Tim Horton's by my house who advertise their extreme underemployment by asking patrons to be patient with what little employees they have would not even consider hiring me.

The Lord had been saying "Work at McDonald's" for about a week now, and I was saying, "Heck no." I was running from where God was calling me to work, for, y'see, if I were to work at McDonald's, I would still have the time and the energy to continue working on this prayer paper until it was completed. But I didn't want to work at McDonald's. So I gave God an ultimatum: "If you really want me to work there," I said yesterday, "then confirm it to me through someone else today."

I met up with one of my church's elders yesterday & we talked about ministry possibilities / getting me and my gifts involved with this new body that I was attending. During the chat, I had mentioned that I was considering applying at McDonald's. Now, instead of responding the way most people do by dismissing the possibility as being "beneath" me, he had mentioned that it would indeed present me with an opportunity to feed into other people's lives and both develop and shape people who may not have other sources of spiritual influence. What a really good point.

I applied to McDonald's today. I was literally shaking all over as I handed in my application. This was the second time in my life that I had done something God was calling me to do that I really, really didn't want to proceed in because of fearing the potential consequences. The first time, I was afraid that I would look like a fool & discredit God's name. This time, I was afraid that I was being a fool by passing up any other potential employment options (not that I've had any, mind you...). And what if I didn't get the job? What would I do then? Did that mean that God didn't come through for me? Was my faith in Christ all a big joke, or was I taking this concept of God actually being interested & involved in our daily lives far too seriously?

As I handed in my application, the assistant manager expressed incredible relief & joy, saying that that was the best news that he had heard all day. I've been scheduled for my hiring interview tomorrow at three.

Spewing From the Whale

Here I go, walking in humbleness before my God. I need to trust Him, and I need to remember that He chooses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise. I still can't really wrap my mind around it, but I'm called to work at McDonald's. How long? That's up to God. I'm done making decisions for myself: directing me is His job. I just need to follow.

Paradigm Shifting

You have to understand: what you see, what you hear, feel, taste and even think—these things hold absolutely no meaning. They are as nothingness in the true scope of reality. What we experience in our day-to-day lives is a joke. It is nothing more than smoke in mirrors, or "shadows and dust!" Yet it is our "reality." How difficult is it for us to grasp the severity of these implications: that our daily experience is, in essence, nothingness: meaningless futility. Solomon had it exactly right when he declared that everything is meaningless & "a chasing after wind." It is so in all utter sincerity. Our understanding and our experience of life is nothing. Absolutely nothing. It doesn't matter what you feel, how you look, who you know, where you live, what you own, or how many pesetas you have in your wallet. None of this adds up to a single quantum particle in the truth of reality.

So then, why this existence? Why smell, taste, sight, sound, touch? Why communication & social order? Why seconds, hours, days and seasons? Why joy or pain? Why weight, mass, length, width, height? Why consciousness? Why interaction and interplay? Why represent reality—why "experience" reality through a meaningless, empty-of-truth projection, masking the true order of reality?

Maybe that is Creation. Maybe none of this being truth and all of this being nothingness is the central core of what the whole of Creation is about. Everything around us is a fabrication; none of it is really "real". Our insertion into this Creation was done by choice. Or, rather, our ability or capacity to recognise the emptiness of true truth in Creation is what characterises Humankind's likeness of the image of God. To grasp truly the truth, the truth that this around is not it—that this around us is nothingness: to be able to appreciate an ascendant order, a true reality outside of Creation where true truth exists, where these dusty shadows emulate real reality. To know God and to know that He is Truth—to comprehend fully that this around us is not truth. That is what it means to be created in the image of God.

This calls for a paradigm shift. A new outlook on "reality." This calls us to live "life" here in accordance to Romans 8, where we are really not living in the flesh at all (in fact, dead), but being made alive in the Spirit. This calls us to understand that any present sufferings we may undergo are really nothing, and that any obstacle set before us that hinders our communion with God is really nothing more that smoke and mirrors, or "shadows and dust!" Look through, see past, grasp the true reality that is really really real and that is really really there.

Around you is nothingness, around you is meaningless. What exists is God & His truth. What exist are those things created in His likeness. The only Life, the only living things are those that are in connection with Christ. All else is either dead or smoke n' mirrors. Life can be had, but only if you choose to really really live.

Grasp the reality.

Food for Thought: Some Quotes From the Lucid-Elusion Translation [LET]

I'm currently in a feverish frenzy (more figuratively & hyperbolically than really) researching the concept & executive structure of prayer—i.e. "What is prayer and how does it work?" It's really quite an exciting adventure: I've unearthed a couple of things that are nothing short of fascinating, and this all from just looking in the Bible! Will I tell you what those findings are? Well... maybe some day. I'm still in the process of tying together a unified theory on "prayer mechanics" (hooray for pretentiousness!!) which I hope actually to test out in the near(ish) future. So, if you're interested in being a guinea pig for a research study on prayer, let me know!

Okay. The preamble's over & done with. Why this entry? Well, I just finished translating the Lord's Prayers found in both Matthew 6 & Luke 11, and I thought that it would be interesting to post my results for you, oh world, to mull over. Let me know what you think. Note the subtle differences between the passages, as they do (for once, since most translators choose merely to gloss them over) actually make a difference:

Luke 11

²[Jesus] Speaking to them, “Whenever you yourself pray, speak thusly: Father, I revere your name. Let your kingdom fully come. ³Give to us each day the bread we need. ⁴And remove from us our failures & shortcomings, being that we are removing all debts owed to us. And do not carry us into trials or temptations.”

(paraphrased: ⁴Forgive us our "sins" (aka, failures or shortcomings) as we forgive the all the wrongs that we hold against others.)

Matt 6

⁹Therefore, pray in this manner: “Our Father in the heavens, I revere your name. ¹⁰Let your kingdom fully come. Make your intentions as they are in heaven, so on earth. ¹¹Our bread for the coming time, you have given to us this day. ¹²And remove from us our failures & shortcomings, as so we removed the debts owed to us. ¹³And do not carry us into trials or temptations, but rescue us from the evil one.”

If you're interested, yes, these translations are made directly from the Nestle-Aland Greek texts and not mere paraphrasing from other English translations.
AP-GM-S;/;AP-GM-S/;/AP-GM-S;AP-GN-S;/AP-GN-S;AP-GN-S/;AP-GM-S/AP-GN-S;AP-GN-S/AP-GM-Sπονηρός

June berry burning bush

I was heading along a wide dirt road late one evening in June. The air was still all around me, but the rich reds and greens in the surrounding terrain that had once been so vibrant now had become a dull blue-grey. Looking up, it was obvious why: Directly overhead was a tormented atmosphere, boiling, fuming and frothing. It was almost as if the sky was having a very bad stomachache, the thick clouds rolling & swelling with the occasional plume billowing outwards in an ominous, sooty jet. Soon, those clouds would vomit their unsettling contents on the unfortunate souls caught between heaven and earth, and all who were looking for escape would be wasting their time trying to avoid the inevitable. I knew that I had to make camp quickly, or else enjoy the pleasantries of being drenched to the bone in sky vomit as I walked along that serene road, where the whole world was perfectly calm and the only sound to be heard was the soft crunch crunch of gravel beneath my boots. Then it came. Storm wind. It is unmistakeable: a soft, yet forceful breeze that trickles through the trees, seeping into the forest leaving no leaf unturned. These clouds meant business. Thankfully, so did I.

Just around the bend in this road I had been hiking along would be my planned campsite. I knew it well, for I spent a couple weeks in the very spot almost a full year earlier. There would be no problem finding an appropriate spot to run a ridgeline & toss my tarp over a nice, soft and flat bit of duff, making my sleep that night rather comfortable. Or so I thought.

It was interesting to see what had changed in the nine months I had been away from that location. Spots in the previous August that had been bone dry were now filled with pools of water. A wooden, makeshift toilet had been erected by some previous individual right in the middle of the area's best camping site. Beer cans, fire pits and lengths of frayed nylon rope were strewn randomly about. It made me sad to see that my expectations of the site and the reality of the very same place did not fit together so well. Alas! My poor, little camping spot... And just then, a chunk of the mountain right across the river to the east began to crash its way down the rocky slopes towards me. Holy crap.

I never saw where the boulder stopped, but it sure did make a huge bang at the end. In fact, I never really even saw the boulder slide down the mountain at all: by now, the queasy clouds had become so engorged that the tips of the treetops above me were now licking those wispy furls of rage. Maybe it had been lightening. I didn't have time to investigate. The echoing rumbles reminded me that camp had to be set up quickly, so I scouted for a grouping of trees that would serve as good anchors, strung my ridgeline & secured my tarp. I was in for a wonderful surprise when I spread out the groundsheet that I had selected for this trip, for to my dismay, the beautiful stretch of polyethylene had three gaping holes torn into it. What luck. Nonetheless, it would have to do.

With the foundations of my shelter set, and with my food bags dangling between a couple of trees off in the distance, I crawled under my burnt-orange scout tarp, wormed my way into my sleeping bag and turned off my headlamp. Some more boulders crashed down the hillside no more than 50 metres to my left as the dark clouds suffocated the remaining light that evening. Stillness ensued after the rumbling echoes came to rest. Then, Pat! The storm's first raindrop exploded on the surface of my tarp. The rest of the kamikaze battalion arrived not much later, plastering my tarp with their little bodies made of cloud vomit. A dazzling flash popped over Island Ridge, to my right. The storm had begun.

I really enjoy sleeping in the rain—so long as I'm not getting wet. Thankfully, the site I chose & the angle of my tarp kept me rather dehumidified. A smile crept over my face as I lay thee, closing my eyes in expectation of a pleasant, restful sleep, being lulled to dreamland by the pattering of many suicidal soldiers exploding on the roof of my makeshift home. It was wonderful. I even began to hear the delightful bolero by a couple violinists performing in concert just for me. Then I crapped my pants as one of those musicians landed on my face and proceeded to suck the blood right out of me.

It must've been due to my irresistible good looks (or perhaps, since we were in the middle of the bush, it was more out of sheer desperation) that she went and told all of her friends that a hot, available man was lying all alone on the forest floor, just waiting to have the blood sucked right out of him in exchange for a nice performance on the violin. It must've been, for in no time at all, I was literally crawling with the little vampiric violinists (for all mosquitoes that harvest blood are female, didn't you know? It's true!) as they played their horror-inducing symphony throughout the storm-filled night.

I think I finally managed to dose off an hour before sunrise, with nothing but a pair of nostrils sticking out of a twoonie-sized hole from the cinched-up end of my sleeping bag.

Things sometimes don't go the way we expect them to. Life—or rather, God—has thrown me a curve ball in the past few weeks. It makes no sense for me to complain or to fight against it. I don't want to end up being slowly digested in a whale stomach for a weekend, eventually being puked up on some foreign shore. Nevertheless, the curve ball is always difficult to deal with. What does He want from me right now? Complete financial reliance on Him. Why? I've no flipping idea. Perhaps, to give me the freedom to minister & serve Him when and where He wants me to. Is it scary? Heck yes. As scary as utter social Castigation. Nonetheless, He is Lord; and though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. I need to. I need to, because He is God. Therefore, I will wait on Him and allow Him to lead me along His set path.

Man, faith is a freaking scary thing.

Today's Prayer

Cry cry, I cry out to you. Lost, lost and alone I feel. Isolated from purpose, isolated from reality, isolated from validation. I hate how I feel. I hate my life right now. I ache for change. Here I sit, rotting, rotting from the inside outside in. Purpose is meaningless, breath is fruitless, life is purpose; action, breath.

I do not know what to do, my God. I have no plan, I have no reference, I have no hope, I have no expectation, I have no direction, I have no means to acquire direction, I have no means to support direction. I am caught in a mire thicker than deep, cavernous black. Abysmal.

You are testing my faith, god, and I don't like it. It feels like crap. It is extremely difficult.

Why should I wait? For how freaking long? Am I even waiting for anything?! Or are you just telling me to wait because you want to?

<...five minute interlude of silence...>

The wait demonstrates obedience. The inaction, dependence and the inability to claim any glory for myself. Reckless abandon of worldly wisdom, adhering to God's will. This will produce greater faith; this will serve as a reminder for future struggles. The Lord must come through. He must. It is nothing about me. It cannot be. It mustn't be.

Therefore, I must remain open. I must remain content. I must praise Him in light of difficulties--and I will. Though my flesh screams rebellion, yet my soul will yield & my knees will bend, as I stoop in reverence to my King, the Lord of All.

Let me know that You love me, and let that be enough.

Readers' Poll

1.) Name two things that others do (or can do) to make you feel safe.



2.) Name two things that people have done (or can do, or wish they would do) to make you feel loved.

Living Water

Lord, I am unhappy

I am lonely and unhappy

I feel pissed off right now

Frustrated

Much of it, I think, is due to my lack of spending time with you. My mind wants to think of other reasons, but my experiences say otherwise.

What is the point of living a life of futility? It's disconcerting knowing that one is easily replaceable.

I want to make a difference, Father. I want to know and feel irreplaceable in at least one person's life. I want to feel valued and special, but right now, I don't.

Why is it that I don't feel like praying, Father? Why don't I want to spend time being with you in a corporate setting? How come I cannot find a place of solitude wherein I can commune with you unhindered by distractions? Why the hell is the city so filled with distractions & disappointments?!

I feel starved & suffocated from lack of You. And because of it, I don't really feel like pursuing You, even though I know it is You who satisfy all things. I am largely dissatisfied with my predicament. I feel that the locus of control has stepped far beyond my reach. I feel helpless, Father.

I need to spend more time with you. At least I'm no longer working disgusting hours. Help me not to be stupid enough to do that again. I am unhealthy without you. Very unhealthy.

Here I am, Lord, feeling useless & helpless, wishing that I felt otherwise. There is no quick fix though, is there? There is no instant remedy. Satisfaction cannot be found in appetitive satiation. My need of feeling valued or meaningful or whole will not be quenched by any person or title or thing, and I know that. Too many times have I tried to fill this feeling of need or longing with approximations of what I've been longing for, and I've seen too many people destroy themselves doing the same thing. Nothing works; there is no substitute. What I am searching for, what I long to have is a right relationship with You. I desire, need, gasp for and suffocate without You. I am hopelessly addicted to Your love & to Your presence. Separation drives me crazy, makes me fall apart.

I need you, Lord I need you. Every hour I need you.

Hungry, I come to You, for I know You satisfy. I am empty, but I know Your love does not run dry.

Breathe on these dry bones. And break these chains.

And I'm desperate for You. And I'm lost without You.

Oh God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you in a dry & weary land where there's no water.

Fill me up, oh Living Water. Fill me up.

יהוה קדש

YHVH Qadash

The God who Sanctifies you.
—Lev. 21

I was born with a disfigured face. During my gestation, I was sharing a very small apartment with a very clingy roommate. Seriously, the guy wouldn't ever leave me alone for a second: always touching me and wondering what I was doing... But hey, the rent was cheap. After a while though, the living conditions were no longer that great. I had been living with this roommate for 8 months in total now, and he had yet to take a shower or bathe or anything. He just sat there, day in & day out. Thank goodness for him that his rent was covered. Nonetheless, our tiny living space had become extremely cramped, so much so that the only way we could even fit in this place was to lie side by side in one big mess of limbs and torsos. It ended up with my roommate pressing his butt cheeks against the left side of my face, while I pushed him against the wall so that he could barely breathe. The authorities caught word of our living conditions & decided that our living quarters were no longer suitable for continued co-habitation. We got evicted.

Upset by this seemingly spontaneous turn of events, I went crying to my mother... And then so did my roommate seven minutes later. The long and short of the story is that during my cramped stay with this roommate, the intense pressure of his body against my face caused some of my facial nerves to become crushed, leaving the lower left quadrant of my mouth irreversibly paralysed.

I guess things could have been worse. I mean, if the doctors & my parents hadn't decided to evict my brother & I a month early from the womb, we would have continued to have grown & the pressure against our bodies would have increased, potentially having caused greater paralysis in my face & possibly killing my brother. As it stands now, though, both of us are living rather healthy lives with only my triangular mouth to point towards any dire predicaments surrounding our gestation.

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm reading through Leviticus. Having just passed through Lev. 21, I have—for the first time—discovered that, were I a Levite of Aaronic lineage, I would be refused entry into the Holy Place due to my disfigurement. I wouldn't be allowed to serve as a full-fledged priest, though I would still be bound by my ancestry to serve within the Tabernacle.

My first reaction to this was, "Well, that's gay. Just because of a physical condition placed upon me through no action of my own, I would be denied the opportunity to serve the Lord as a full-fledged priest. How fair is that?" Then, I finished the chapter and consented to the Law.

You see, the reason that I wouldn't be allowed to serve as a full priest, were I an Aaronic Levite, was because of God's holiness. The Levitical laws were drawn up in order to emphasise God's holiness and his purity, which in turn would emphasise our depravity and sinfulness. The importance of having a serving priesthood without blemish who stood before the Lord as the intercessor between the nation of Israel and the most holy God reminds the people of how utterly perfect and holy the Lord of he Universe actually is. The Lord called it profanity to have anyone with any blemish to enter into the Holy Place (oh, those blemishes also include individuals who do not have 20/20 vision, making me twice as disqualified), which makes sense if you bring into consideration that the precepts and order that God installed through the Mosaic covenant mirror those of the heavenly realm.

In order to commune with God, one must be pure, spotless and 100% holy—no exceptions: God doesn't compromise. He will not accept anything tainted or second rate. God demands the very best, and He deserves nothing less. To have a priest or a sacrifice that was in some way disfigured or misshapen would undercut the importance and the reality of God's utter holiness and perfection. The notion of "it's good enough" would quickly take root, having been given precedent from the presence of those things less than perfect being fit for holy ordinance, and following from humanity's natural tendency to be as lazy as we can possibly be. Soon "holiness" would no longer embody those things set apart by God for God's purposes. Soon, "holiness" would degrade to become equivalent with "mundane" and "menial." The conception of a holy & righteous God who is perfect above all things would no longer be meaningful, and reverence for the Creator of all things would fade just as the tendril-like whisps of smoke do into the vast expanse of surrounding air.

No. Holiness must be reflected by an un-yielding adherence to the highest standard: God's ordained standard (hooray for Jesus). If I were a Levitical Jew of the line of Aaron, I would not allow myself to complain about my exclusion from ministering before the Lord as my brothers would freely be able to do. Instead, I think that I would find myself worshipping God all the more, being constantly reminded of His holiness & perfection.

Crossing the Line

Now I warn you, my readership, what I am going to say next will be anything but popular amongst the beliefs of today's society, which may very well include your own. Nonetheless, I regard what I am about to say as truth, and I feel obligated to say it because I feel it is important for truth to be told.

The natural extension of my thoughts from Leviticus 21, and the importance God places on the perfect state of his priests & sacrifices—which includes no broken bones, no scabs, cuts or bruises—brings my attention to a popular trend in Christian circles that started about 20 years ago. That trend is women serving in primary leadership roles within the Church. It unsettles me to think that what appears to be the larger portion of today's Church can so easily throw away direct instruction from the Bible regarding women's position within the sphere of Christian ministry and the Church. I am just as convinced that the passages in I Cor. 11 & I Tim. 2 are to be ignored because they are "cultural edicts" as I am convinced that Eve being created from Adam should be ignored because of its own paternalistic overtones. God is very clear concerning the office of females within the ministerial order, as the Bible is rife with both edicts and examples throughout the Old and New Testaments. To name a few: Adam was created first, and Eve as his helper; the Lord made covenants with Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, not Sarah, Rebekah, Leah or Rachel; the Mosaic covenant decreed that no female would ever serve as a priest—even if she were the only living descendent of Aaron; Miriam, the prophetess sister of Moses & Aaron, was given no office within the newly-freed nation of Israel & when she complained about Moses' special treatment, God struck her with leprosy; Deborah, the only female judge over Israel, held office after Ehud, sharing the position with both Shagmar & Barak; none of David's daughters (or other female descendants) were ever anointed as rulers over Israel; Jesus was a man; there were no females appointed among the Twelve disciples or apostles; the first seven deacons (or bishops, depending on how you want to entitle them) appointed by the Twelve were all male.

Does this mean that women are by no means allowed to serve within the church? Not at all! Are they able to be influential and effective ministers? By all means, though they must serve in separate, complimentary roles. Just as Eve was a helper to Adam, Sarah pivotal in God's promise to Abraham (as were Rebekah, Leah and Rachel), Deborah key to the team of judges after Ehud, Mary essential for Jesus' birth, Martha and the Marys supportive of and actively involved in Christ's ministry, so are women of today's Church essential in and beneficial to the Christian ministry. It just means that they should be serving in different roles.

Is it unfair that women should not be allowed to be serving as primary leaders & teachers within the Church today? Perhaps, depending on how you evaluate fairness. It is, though, equally unfair for the Levitical Jew of Aaron's descent to be forbidden from priestly service because of a defect upon his body. Both the woman and the Aaronic descendant may be highly educated and gifted in areas that would greatly benefit the ministry, yet nonetheless, they both would still be disqualified from serving in those leadership positions.

God is holy. It is God who sanctifies us. He proclaims that the Levite with a disfigurement is unfit for priestly service, even if the blemish was wholly out of the Levite's power. Why? Because God says so. God also says that He doesn't want women to be holding positions of primary leadership or teaching. Why? Because He says so. Should we complain about this so-called injustice? Should we try to rationalise the bending or breaking of Biblical decrees to fit our selfish ambitions or our perceptions of what we think is right, in light of our current cultural values? Should we profane God's holiness by stepping into the temple, knowing full well that He has disqualified us for the office we are trying to fill? Or, on the other hand, should we recognise that God's ways are holy, perfect & higher than any cultural philosophy? And, should we humbly accept the position that God has ordained for us, worshipping Him all the more through the constant reminder of our disqualification pointing to His utter, unwavering holiness?

As for me & my household, we will worship the Lord. He is YHWH Qadash—The Lord who Sanctifies—the One who makes things holy.

עזאזל

He stands there, dressed all in layers of heavy, white linen. In one hand, he holds a couple of coloured stones; in the other, a ceremonial dagger. A gentle breeze ruffles the many folds of his clothing as the desert sun beats down upon his forehead. Across from him stands another man, holding the reigns of two identical male goats. This man waits expectantly as the man in white throws the stones in his hand to the ground. Dust settles, and they both look at the rocks. The man in white collects the stones while the herdsman offers the reigns of the goat on his left. Taking hold of the reigns, the man in white turns and walks off, disappearing through the blue, purple & red curtain that shrouds the only entrance through the large, 8-foot high wall of linen.

About half an hour later, the man in white walks out from behind the linen wall and comes to get the second male goat. The red spatter of blood has marred his white garments and he now smells like the smoke of charred animal fat. The man who was waiting hands over the second goat and stands, waiting, as the man in white disappears again through the red, blue & purple curtain.

Behind this curtain & within the linen walls is a large, open courtyard. It is completely bare, except for three features: a large fire pit that looks like bronze half-cube 8 feet wide & 4 feet tall, having bronze horns jutting off each of its upper corners; a large bronze bowl on a bronze stand; and a 30 foot high tent, rectangular in shape, made of red-dyed leather.

Smoke billows out of the bronze firebox, and the ground near one of its edges is covered with a warm, sticky mud—slightly red in colour. The man in white leads the goat to this firebox, and then he stops in front of it. He places his hands on the head of the hairy animal, lowers his own head to the ground and begins to speak, "I confess!"

For the next while, the man in white speaks of the wrongs done by him, to him, by others and to others. He recounts every single transgression and trespass that everybody in his country has committed. When he has finished the speech, he lifts his head, grabs hold of the reigns and leads the male goat back towards the red, blue & purple curtain that they had entered from earlier. Passing through the curtain, they meet back up with the herdsman who has been waiting for their return. The man in white offers the reigns back to the herdsman, who accepts the goat. He, then, turns and begins walking away, into the desert wilderness with the goat where, after a while, he will release the goat and walk back to his nation's camp.

“The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.” —Lev 16:22 (NASB)

I love the book of Leviticus. It is fascinating & ripe with symbolism, when compared to the rest of the Bible, esp. the passages concerning Heaven (Revelation, in particular). It's amazing. I have never before enjoyed reading the second half of Exodus or Leviticus, but this time around, it is full of life and wonder.

More thoughts about what I'm discovering later.

Sensation & Pensation

For those of you who don't already know, I do a lot (most) of my thinking & figuring through writing. Some people play music, others dance. I think my brother plays Freecell when he processes life, but me, I write.

I've been thinking a lot about community & Christianity lately, mostly because of the markedly polar experiences I've had at the event horizon of those two concepts. Oh, and when I say polar, I really do mean polar: diametric opposites.

At camp over this summer, I experienced all things good when Christians gathered as a community, with a common goal & a common focus. I experienced what it was like for a group to adopt a common goal: to become one in Him, as Christ was one with the Father (cf. Jn 17:11) and to reach out in ministry with this as our foundation. Day in, day out, there was no escape from the community. We were forced to be together, because there was nowhere you could go to escape from it--not that we needed to be forced to be together. It was a beautiful thing: an environment that brought a lot of healing to many members of the community--myself included.

Now that I am back in Edmonton, the stark contrast is richly evident. Community is sparse at best, and as of yet, I've yet to see a purpose-driven community adopt John 17:11 as a primary tenet since I've been back. Christianity in the city seems to be a secondary objective, and I've found myself getting caught in the social inertia of such a lifestyle. Between work, entertainment & consumerism, there leaves little resources to devote to the King of Kings & the Lord of Lords. But, like I've said, I noticed myself getting caught in this trend. I don't like it. I don't like it at all, and it's going to change. I already have made steps to try to rectify this slide in my own life, but more need to be taken & that's my primary goal for the next bit.

Reorientation

Last night, I started uploading some pictures of my summer adventures to my Flickr photostream, and as I was e-leafing through my photos, I ran across a series of pics from the day in our COLTS training that we went on a blindfolded orienteering exercise. The goal of the exercise was to test our skills in map-reading, geographical feature identification & triangulation. It worked well, since none of us were really all that familiar with our surroundings yet (was like the third week into training) & without having the added bonus of being able to see where we travelled from, we really didn't know where we were (Okay, that's partially a lie: I almost immediately new where we were--kind of--since it was a field that we had passed through the year before on a dayhike at Sr. Outcamp.).

Compare that exercise to my Solo out trip--pretty much the final practical exam of COLTS--where our leader, Dustin, blindfolded me & drove for half an hour, only to drop me off on a logging road beside a reforested cutblock in the middle of nowhere. It was far enough that none of the mountains that I could see were familiar & the trees were high enough to obscure the majority of the horizon. The first blindfolded adventure had the advantage of being in an open field with many, many easily recognisable features available. This new one had none of those. Did I sit down & cry, or did I pout about how there was nothing to see? No, rather, I did what I was trained to do: "If you're unsure as to where you are, walk twenty feet & look again."

Okay, so the 20-foot meander didn't really help all that much in this alien area, but the underlying concept rang true. I hoisted my backpack & started walking up the forestry road: there were footprints in the now dry mud, and I didn't see any coming back from that direction, so it had to be a good bet.

After half a kilometer of hiking & looking around, I had a good guess as to where I thought I might be. Nonetheless, I wasn't sure. I kept walking along the forestry road until it came to an abrupt stop. I had become surrounded by a steep, wooded bowl. Should I go back along the road I had just travelled, or was there another option? My inferences had led me to believe that I needed to be heading N by NE, and it just so happened that a very forested ridge was right along that path. In order to really know where I was going, I needed to get up high above the treetops anyways, so I decided to make the move upwards.

The first section of this steep incline was an old cutblock which had been replanted a couple of years ago. It brought back memories of times gone by when I was the unfortunate individual who was given the charge to heft 50 kilos of water, soil &twigs up such slopes only to offload the payload and reload time and time again until the section had been completely filled in like one large--and much less fun--game of Tetris. I smiled to myself as I sweated under the large backpack I was bearing up this hill, for it gave me great comfort knowing that I would only have to climb this cutblock once & never again.

Halfway up the hill, I was met with a series of horrible screeches punctuated only by the soft shadow of a falcon breezing over the land around me. The further up I went, the more insistent this bird of prey became, letting me know that I really wasn't all that welcome. Nonetheless, I kept to my upward course, and although my feathered fellow did protest all the more vociferously, he eventually abandoned the outcry as I passed through or by his territory. Now, though, the cutblock ended and the true bush began.

It wasn't so much frustrating as it was unfortunate (in fact, I didn’t find it frustrating at all: merely one of those facts of life) that I still hadn't been able to spot any recognisable features on the horizon so far. My view of the western skies was quite clear, and along with the lack of visual obstructions was the general lack of prominent landmarks. The two directions I really wanted a clear vantage of were to the south & to the west, yet it just so happened that those (as well as north) directions were beautifully masked by thick, tall stands of spruce. "Surely," I said to myself, "once I crest this ridge, I will be able to get a good view of the land around me and all of my questions will be answered."

I crested that ridge a little while later. No questions were answered at all. Instead, I was met with more thick stands of trees. Following where I had guessed I was on my map, it looked like this ridge would decline steeply. Steep slopes usually mean that you can get a good peek out over the tops of trees as they grow ever lower in front of you. Heading for the eastern edge of the ridge, I looked for open spots. By now, the eastern side had become densely packed with undergrowth--so much so that I literally had to squeeze my way through the bramble of limbs and branches before me.

I was no longer having any fun. The steep slope was quickly becoming treacherous, as the alders which sprawled all over the place complicated manoeuvrability. It often meant walking on the slippery limbs which jutted out a couple of feet above the steeply graded ground. The view wasn't getting any clearer at all: in fact, the only places that I could safely travel were becoming even more densely wooded, whereas the "open" views turned out to be gullies too steep to provide any solid footing. Now, I was frustrated. I considered turning around several times but reconsidered, knowing that I had to reach an open view at some time.

The battle of my resolve against my frustration finally ended. I turned around and started climbing back up the hill, having become completely frustrated with my inability to venture forward without becoming snagged by all the branches around me. Retracing my steps proved to be as difficult as proceeding, so the only solace I had was knowing that the ridge's peak was free of underbrush. I still really didn't know where I was for sure, but at this point, I didn't care: whether I was where I thought I should be or not, the inability to make any headway wouldn't help me reach my intended destination. I needed to get moving, and I needed at least to get to some sort of open space where I could have a clear vantage point, allowing me to triangulate my position. I didn't want to backtrack, but going along the same game trail that I had been following wasn't going to help me get anywhere. I was stuck in a lose-lose situation, so I chose the outcome with the better possible results. In the end, though, I did neither.

About five minutes into my backtracking, I saw a small game trail shooting off to the north. I hadn't noticed it on my way down, because the brush from the other side completely obscured it from sight. I contemplated taking this new route for a second, and then looked forward, up the hill. My "path" down to where I had come suddenly appeared to be one-way: the dense brush and tree branches had blocked off any ascent. Like a valve made of branches, it allowed me to come down by pushing the brush aside, but ascent was impossible. All of the sudden, this new game trail looked all the more appealing, and I took it.

Now, in case you get the wrong idea, this game trail was not one of your back-country highways, allowing speedy travel through the wilderness. No, in fact, this trail would be more classified as one of those "necessary access" corridors that maintenance workers in buildings or large vessels only crawl into: a route used not because you want to, but because you have to. It wasn't all that much better than the first game trail I had chosen to follow, but it was at least better.

I followed this new trail while keeping my eyes peeled for openings in the forest around me, hoping that I would catch a glimpse of the surrounding terrain. No such luck, unfortunately. However, after a good long while of struggling through alders and other shrubs, the game trail finally opened into an old-growth stand of conifers.

Never before had I been so elated to stumble into a patch of wilderness that had no underbrush. It was truly delightful. By this point, I had given up any chance of actually finding an open lookout, so instead of looking around, I followed the game trail along its path downwards into the quickly-approaching valley, and then it happened.

No sooner had the spruce patch began than it ended, exploding into another reforested cutblock. Just like that, I could now see the hills and the mountains around me: it was beautiful. Beautiful, except for the huge ridge right in the way of where I was hoping to find some familiar peaks. Nonetheless, the clearing was open enough for me to stitch together the geographical pieces from both sides of the ridge I had just hopped over. There I was, 82G/10 XXXXXX. In the bowl SW of Trail Hill, due north of Tent Mountain: right where I was hoping I'd be. The rest of my venture was a cakewalk, as I had quick access to quad trails all the way from this cutblock to my target coordinate.

Tying it Together

So, what's the deal with these two stories & why did I bother to tell them in this blog entry? Well, besides relaying some of my summer adventures to you for entertainment purposes, it helps me get my point across. As I said at the beginning, I think through writing. In both of my COLTS stories, I was led to a new location blindfolded & thrown into this foreign environment without being given any information. I did, however, have a couple of things with me: I had my map, my compass and my training. I had the tools I needed to figure out where I was & what was going on around me. I had the knowledge through instruction on how to use these tools and how to proceed to get the information I would need to orient (or orientate for your English nerds) myself in the new environments. In the first example, I had access to a handful of others who were stumbling through the exercise alongside me. In the second one, I had only what I brought with me.

I have been translocated to a foreign environment yet again, though the geography and the structures of this environment are well known to me. Nonetheless, the social environment and the cultural orientation are vastly different than those you would find at camp. It's easy to get, be and stay lost in this culture, where the dangers are different but just as real as those in the wilderness. Again, I have only what I've brought with me: my tools, my experience and my training.

My personality and my identity refuses to allow myself (or my Self, depending on how you want to look at it) to get lost in this society & to enter into "survival" mode, where I'd do enough just to get by. No, I am compelled to know exactly where I am and to head towards the destination that has been given me. That destination is utter intimacy & community with Jesus Christ, and it is this that I want, this that I strive for.

"If you're unsure as to where you are, walk twenty feet & look again." It's time to start doing a bit of meandering and looking around, I think. In fact, I do believe that I have already begun this process. I've noticed the slow cultural assimilation that I've been undergoing & now I am entering into active resistance. My time will not be wasted by turning off my brain & by spending money on comfort & entertainment. No: there are more important things to do. There are people to connect with, there is ministry to be undertaken, there is a relationship with the Lord of the Universe to be had. These things I strive for, and these things I will pursue. It's not good enough to sit around and mope about being lost in an environment that isn't Home; instead, it's time to press on towards Home & to help others get there too.

I'm on my way: care to stumble through it along the way with me? You're invited.

BlogPsalm 4

Your love is unending and ceaseless
Your utterances last beyond the generations
Hope and restoration are found in you
You, oh Father of Lights, are my refuge and my strength.
When I seek you, I am satisfied; when I follow after you, I am held safe
You are my guidepost, a beacon upon a high tower. My hope and rest and strength are found in you.

Why is it, oh Lord, that I stray?
What makes me seek the mud and the shadows of the murky forest?
Why must I desire the ways of the wicked & look towards my own destruction?

Peace and Healing are your names. Exaltation and glory surround you like a garment.
You are the lord of all things good. You are the lord of all.
You are the king of all my ways. You are the king of all.
You are the peak of all things measured. You are the crown of all.
Therefore, I will worship you.
Because of your unending & ceaseless love, I will praise you.
May your name be written on my heart, and may your love be issued from my lips.
I exalt you, oh Exaltation of the exalted. I exalt you.

Read other BlogPsalms here

From the Archives... 1

COLTS Entry 1: April 28, 2005

Well, here marks the beginnings of my 4-month summer journey in the Crowsnest Pass! It is already Friday–hard to believe how fast the time is racing along, especially since the program doesn't even officially start until this evening. So, what has happened in the meantime to eat up those precious seconds? Well, let's see....

Tuesday

I quit my cooking job on Tuesday, the 25th. It was a good day all around: I was working with people that I really enjoyed, I was training a new guy to replace some of my shifts & I was told to take 'er easy for the day by my boss. Nonetheless, time flew by & before I knew it, my last 8 hours as a line cook were over. Of course, I couldn't leave without making an exceptional mark on my life from that job, and it just so happened that at about 9 o'clock that morning, a couple hours into my shift, I was slicing 24 litres of mushrooms for the day's usage. About 22 litres into the repetitive ordeal, I accidentally got a bit carried away and began having some slicing fun on the tip of my thumb. The next thing I knew, I had a weird sensation at the tip of my left thumb, right beside the mushroom that I had finished slicing. Looking at my forlorn digit, I realised what had befallen me as a bright red substance started to run ever so delightfully from the outermost part of that appendage. Now, unlike my previous 6-stitch slice back in January, where I almost took off the whole pad of my ring finger while slicing onions, I just shaved off a tiny, tiny speck of my thumb this time. You wouldn't be able to tell that, however, from the amount of blood that this wound was producing. I must say, it was a veritable bleeder. No sooner had I cleaned the wound, applied a dressing to it, and cleaned up any potential food safety problems at the location where I injured myself than my poor little bandage had become soaked in red, drippy goodness. Thankfully, I had the foresight to cover the wound and dressing with a "finger condom," which at this time was quite red on the inside. So, guy that I am, I went back over to the first aid station & following my training, applied more pressure & more gauze overtop the old, soaking bandage. By this time, where was so much dressing that trying to cover the wound with a finger condom proved rather difficult, though I managed it but not without tearing a hole in the side of the latex cover. Seeing that blood was beginning to discolour the gauze already, I thought it prudent to roll on another finger condom overtop the previous, compromised one. Done. Back to work.

The day ended with me giving my boss & supervisors a card from one of my favourite collections: The Bud Light Institute's Greeting Cards for Men. The Bud Light Institute's motto, "Men helping men help men," is nothing short of gold, and so was the rather humorous card I gave to my co-workers. It's delightful greeting-card poem ended with, "I caught you a Muskie because I care." I love it.

Anyways, my boss gave me a big hug as I was heading out with some of the guys over to the lounge at our restaurant & said that she'll be looking forward to my return. She got off work a little bit later and joined us in the lounge for a final brewskie, wishing me good luck and farewell. And that was the end of that chapter.

Arriving home, I immediately set myself to work, diligently working at packing up the final remains of what was my room. My roommates will be moving out of our apartment come July(ish), so in order to make the whole ordeal smoothest for all parties involved, we decided to have me pack my stuff now & they'll move it along with their goods to our new abode–a house over in the Strathern region of Edmonton. I was up until 11:30 that night, packing away & ensuring that I had everything I needed for my four-month stint at Crowsnest Lake Bible Camp.

Wednesday

Got up at 7:30–a nice 3 hour sleep-in –and started the final bits of packing. I wanted to take a nice long shower that morning, but my roommate beat me to it. I had just enough time to whip in & out of the shower before my ride called, letting me know that he was sitting in his van at the entrance to my apartment. Quickly, I gathered my wits (and my gear) about me, quickly thought if I had everything & flew out the door. I greeted Jack, my ride, warmly & thanked him for picking me up. We hopped into his big white van & headed south, stopping off at Denny's for breakfast, and also where my other ride was going to meet us.

A good spot of over-priced breakfast and sub-par service came and went, along with some final bits of conversation, and after some farewells, Rob Snyder–my new ride, and one of the guys I'd be working with for the summer–and I bade Jack adieu, and we were off, riding the highway south to the Crowsnest Pass.

Of course, the journey didn't go without a couple highlights: we stopped off at Peter's Drive-in in Calgary for one of our last tastes of civilisation and something that anyone should do when passing by Calgary right at a mealtime. And the other thing: we took a wrong turn.

The Wrong Turn

It’s great travelling along a route that you only partially know and it's even more exciting when you make a mistake, which is what we did. As we were heading out of Calgary towards the Pass, we wanted to take the faster route–Highway 22–so we took the exit off of Highway 2 onto the 22X, like anyone normally would. As we were driving along the extension, we knew that we had to turn left sometime to hop onto the real 22 and drive along to our destination. Well, it turned out that we were a wee bit too anxious to get going south & we turned a turn too soon. Next thing we knew, we were driving down this unmaintained road with nothing but rolling amber foothills surrounding us, pocked every once in a while by these enormous, beautiful houses. We were sure that we had just–only seconds ago–left the outskirts of Alberta's largest city, but by the landscape surrounding us, you would never have been able to tell. It was a remarkable view: prairies stretching over the foothills as far as the eye could see, blockaded only by the ghostly shadows of the Rockies far to our right as our little 4x4 truck skipped along the road, puffing up a nice brown billow of dust behind us. Where were we? Some secondary highway–537 or something like that. Were we lost? Nope. Not a chance. This nifty little green and grey contraption in my hand told us exactly where we were & how to get to where we wanted to be: one simple right hand turn when this road ended & we'd be back on course. I love my wee GPS unit already.

The Pass

The Crowsnest Pass may be–by definition–the lowest part of the Continental Divide in the area, but it's still in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, and it's still over 1,000 feet above sea level higher than Edmonton. It being the end of April, one would expect the place to still have some decent snow coverage–or at least so I thought when I was packing for my 4-month excursion. However, when Rob & I arrived at camp & at the lake where the camp gets its name, there was no snow really to be seen at our elevation. Heck, the mountain lake–notorious for being frigid–was completely clear, thrashing about in the Pass' famous winds. Except for the lack of leaves, the place looked very much like it had in August last year. Who woulda thunk?

Rob & I drove up to the camp's office at walked in: only two people were around–quite uncommon. We were greeted heartily by Charles, the maintenance guy, who also showed us to our lodgings for the next 4 months. Rob & I unpacked, settled in a bit, had a small meal and turned in for the night.

Thursday.

Since the COLTS program didn't really start until the evening of the 28th, I had a lot of free time on my hands to play around with. Rob had come down early to get re-certified for First Aid, a requirement for the COLTS program. I slept in until 9–a wonderful change from the 4:30 mornings that I was getting used to because of work, and then just sort of wandered around for a bit. The Sysco truck, containing all of the foodstuffs for the camp's operations arrived, and I helped the camp directors receive the order, rotate stock & put things away. Wow, seems like work all over again :). Lunch came & went, where I met two more COLTS "students," Kayte & Ginny. Lunch being done, and some wood having been cut for that evening's sauna, Rob introduced me to a guy named Caleb, who wanted to take Rob's truck out for some 4x4ing. Having a couple of hours on our hands, we all decided to take the little truck out, up into the mountains.

4x4ing

With the three of us in a two-seater truck, we drove out towards the BC border, up onto a coal-mining road known around these parts as Tent Mountain Road. It's a pretty standard gravel road, well equipped with your run-of-the-mill huge potholes & the like. Nothing too serious, though. To make things more interesting, we decided to take the truck up what is supposed to be a quadding trail that leads to a camp site called "the bathtubs," due to the presence of some natural limestone bathtubs carved out by the mountain stream running there. Caleb–my new personal hero–decided that it would be much more interesting and much more comfortable to stand in the bed of the truck, holding on to the roll bars as we went down this trail. Driving a full-sized truck along that path was quite impressive, as there are parts of the path that are literally sections of the flowing creek. The best part, however, was this quite steep incline just past the bathtubs campsite. There was no way that we were going to pass this up. About two hundred feet up, the road forked, yielding one very steep path–literally 45 degrees of incline–and another, less steep approach to the top of the hill. Now, Rob has only had this truck for about a month, so he didn't want to try the super-steep incline right off the bat, or at least he didn't want to try climbing it right off the bat. So, instead, we took the less steep approach to the crest of this hill, turned around, and got ready for the decline of our lives.

This hill is like nothing you've ever gone down in a road vehicle before. I mean, think something like the first hill on a roller coaster track. Yes, that steep: not a word of a lie. The only reason we got up enough nerve to go down the bloody steep hill was because we saw what it looked like from the bottom. As we drove up the hill's edge, we slowly watched the ground disappear before our sight. There's something just a little bit scary–and exhilarating at the same time–about watching the horizon appear below the front of your vehicle. All that we could see out the windshield was blue and mountains: no ground at all. Seriously, it was like we were driving off the edge of a cliff. Then we started going down. The truck tipped forwards, gripping on to the loose boulders as best it could, which I must say, was quite amazingly done. We started crawling down the hill slowly to begin with... Until we got halfway down & the truck lost traction, siding its way along the path on a wave of loose rocks and boulders until we came to a pleasant rest at the bottom of the hill. What a rush!

Since we succeeded on descending the hill, we thought that we had might as well try going up the steep banshee. Turning the truck around on the path, we attempted the ascent. Attempt number one: we got 20 feet up, lost traction and started digging ruts in the loose soil. Attempt number two: taking a "running" start, we climber up twenty feet further than the time before, but again lost traction. Attempt number three: a racing start let the truck fly up the hill, but only a couple of feet farther that the previous time. As we sat there on the hill we looked out our windows at the trees beside us and laughed. Rob asked me, chuckling, "How steep do you think this hill is?" It was plain to see that we were in fact at a true 45° angle, since the trees were starting in the far bottom corner of the windows & were making a perfect diagonal line, cutting across the exterior view to the other side of the window.

Knowing that we couldn't get up the steep incline–at least at this point in the season, with the soil still quite moist and loose–we decided to drive around and come down one more time before heading back to camp. Just like the first time, the only comparison to that descent would be a roller coaster as we careened down the quad trail towards the bottom of the hill, riding along a cushion of rocks and boulders until stopping at the bottom of the hill.

That night, we had our screaming hot sauna, punctuated by watching the final periods of the Oilers' game & the Flames' game, both ending in disappointment.

What Next?

And now it's Friday. The whole show begins this evening. Should prove to be an interesting adventure, if these past couple days are any indication. Stay tuned for more updates to follow!