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On Friday, Alan, Dennis, Yukiko and I went to see Emm Gryner at the ROM. She played a 45 minute set and it was totally cool. After the set, we wandered one of the exhibits and got to see some cool stuff like a Hudson's Bay Company map, the first Canadian Flag, the landing gear from an Avro Arrow, and coolest of all, the original manuscript from Anne of Green Gables. Very cool. Had a fun night. And I spent all weekend cooking awesome food. Like a chicken, and apple crisp, and roast beef. And then stew. Very tasty. post/read comments
looking to move upwards from ubuntu to something else. requirements: - linux - preferrably gnome as desktop - liveCD install is a plus - a little more advanced options, ubuntu is starting to feel like a toy please leave comments post/read comments
Tomorrow I am having Alan's parents over for lunch, as Alan's mom has been "subtlely" mentioning how she wants to see it ever since I moved in. We spent much of the day cleaning and preparing, and I must admit I did not realize how dirty my apartment has become. Bought a pretty flower for my table since I killed the first one. The menu for tomorrow is as follows: raw veggies and dip ceasar salad lasagna Lasagna is my best dish, I've been making it since I was like 11. The apartment looks really good. Had to re-arrange my bookshelf to fit all the books Alan and I got a King's books yesterday. Missed a couple of family events this weekend, but I really just needed a few days to get caught up in all those little things. After the wedding last weekend, it'd been like 2 weeks since laundry or any cleaning or organizing was done. Will take some pictures of the apartment clean for posterity's sake. post/read comments Fri, May. 25th, 2007, 10:57 am
At conference
I am currently at the annual meeting of London Conference. Blogging via wi-fi! YAY! The technology present at these things have definitely increased since my first conference, brought to you by the mystical power of the overhead and a felt tipped marker. The video Alan, Dave and I created will be shown sometime tomorrow. Not sure how it will look on the projector. post/read comments
This is from "How To Irritate People" which is not Monty Python but precedes it and stars many Monty Pythoners. Also worth checking out is the interview sketch from the same special. This is the same sketch but from an episode of Flying Circus. post/read comments
My kitchen looks like this right now.  I don't want it to. My roommates never do their dishes. It frustrates me. If you were in this situation, what would you do to address it? Please be aware that asking the roommates to do their dishes results in, well, nothing happening. post/read comments Sun, Nov. 26th, 2006, 03:52 pm
Best IM ever.
(18:40:42) alan at work: sometimes I wish a dragon would try to eat you, so I could save you from the dragon. post/read comments
I'm giving this speech in church tomorrow. If you think something should be tweaked please let me know before 9:30 am Sunday October 1. Some of you are probably wondering why I was interested in going to General Council in the first place, and that is a bit of a long story, but I will try to give you the short version. I grew up in Camlachie United, which is a little bit north of Sarnia, and my family was always quite involved there. I was commonly "volun-told" into helping at suppers as many kids are. As a teen, I was highly involved with youth groups and events, both in Lambton County and on the Conference level, and when I came to university, my involvement stopped, partly because I didn't know the city, but mostly because I didn't feel I had the time. When I graduated this year, I realized how much I missed working in the church, and how much of my character development really came from the United Church. So, in January I realized that I wanted to see all it. I'd done local church stuff, and I'd done presbytery-level youth stuff, and I've been to half a dozen meetings of London Conference, so I knew what those were about, and I decided that I should see what happens on the national level at General Council. I wanted to see how everything worked and be a part of the group I thought must be making the "big decisions". It's really hard for me to distill an eight day conference into a concise three minute discussion that will help reflect the event and my experiences at General Council this summer, but I will try to hit most of the major; and some of the more minor events of the week. The first thing that really hit me at General Council was a sense of connectedness to the rest of the church outside of London Conference. Though we do some things differently, and each congregation is going to put its own unique perspective on their worship service and outreach programs, we have more things in common than we have separating us. Many of the challenges and celebrations of Bedford United and other churches here in Windsor are the same as those of churches in Nova Scotia or Alberta. We sat in community with each other and wrestled to learn what the future of the United Church should be. Every day, we spent our morning in small groups, discerning what God's will is for the church. The afternoons were spent doing the business of the church: debating, hearing presentations, and eventually voting on the "big topics" of this council. We had workshops and special speakers, and there were a large number of international guests and guests from partner churches present with us. We passed a new statement of faith called "A Song of Hope", which is written in a flowing poetic format. This statement of faith will be our statement of faith for the next generation of the church, at which point it is hoped that the next generation will take up the challenge of writing their own statement. The document that came from our discerment times was called A Call to Purpose. I feel it is a strong indicator of our time together, and in part, it reads: "We long for a deeper relationship with God. We long for deeper connections with one another. We acknowledge the brokenness, pain, and fear we carry. We believe that our spirituality and our prophetic voice spring from one source and are lived in one Body. We are restless with a renewed call. We are seeking to live faithfully as a united people in a divided world. We seek to be authentic. We seek relationships that are truthful and just. We long to embody what we say we believe, to be the United Church of Canada, for our communities, for the world, and for creation." For the first time at General Council, there was a program available to commissioners under 30 who wanted to gather together in community. About half of those commissioners were from London Conference, including myself, and Charles who spoke last week. It was through this group that I really was able to find my place at General Council. Late one night, and early into the next morning, part of the group toiled over a proposal regarding youth and young adult ministries that sprang out of previous late-night conversations. We built a caring and loving community in a matter of a few days, where we could discuss our hopes and fears, build on our collective talents, and create something that the young adults of one individual conference could not have created on their own. We spoke with conviction and vision. We smiled and laughed and cried and supported each other. We listened intensely, with a fire in our eyes. And as I jumped into the fray with all I had, I felt that there was a place in this group for me. And that this was something special. It was sacred space. It was an space heavy with intent. Something about this specific group, at that time and place, that allowed me to believe that within us held the capacity to really make something happen. Something big. Something impossible to convey. Something I'm still working on conveying, and something that I will be wrestling with for the next three years, until the next General Council. I went to Thunder Bay wondering where, if any, my place in the United Church of Canada was. Now I know. It's right here. Since I've returned, I've spent time in the kitchen doing dishes, in people's back yards, at young adult event planning meetings, and in Toronto basements, living the Call to Purpose, and it's through these experiences that I've realized that the "big decisions" are made every day, in the life and work of every one of us. post/read comments
Today is a beautiful fall day. I love weather like this. I will be spending it ignoring broadcast television and overly emotional remembrances of the disaster of five years ago. Not that I don't care it happened, it's just that I'm not impressed with the way media outlets profit off fear mongering and all those other fun things the do so well. I will be moving houses in Windsor within the next month. The details of renting at my current location have changed, so I am looking for a new place at the moment. If you know anybody who has a fairly well-sized room in a house, please let me know. I am looking for utilities included and rent under 375 a month. I looked at four places yesterday, and three were not great and one was quite nice, so I'm thinking that place will be a winner, but I want to keep looking for the next few days. Still trying to decide what General Council meant. Will fill you in when I figure it all out. post/read comments
While I was sitting around on the last Sunday morning of General Council, or shortly thereafter, I got a thought stuck in my head. A nagging, persistent thought. One of those thoughts I couldn't quite grab hold of. In my last post, I wrote that there was something big happening. This is a little different. I still believe that something big did happen there, and is still happening, but this is something small. Something more personal. About midway through last week, after pondering this pseudo-thought for days, not being able to shake it and so on, I began wondering if it was a call of sorts. A divine call. I don't really know what for, but perhaps something to do with ministry. This freaks me out. I'm not an overtly Christian person, partially because I hate that term, and partially because I grew up in the school of faith where actions spoke much louder than words. We don't talk about our faith. We help out our neighbors when they're in trouble, and pitch in at church suppers, but we don't talk about our spirituality. As such, I have no real training for how to deal with this. With no real training, I went to my MSN list full of new General Council contacts, and a few good friends to talk it out with them. What wonderful people. I am really blessed to have peers like this. Anyways, after hours of chatting, answering questions, asking questions, and so on, I came up with a current statement. It goes as follows: "At this very moment, in this room in an empty house in Windsor, I do not feel like I am called to ministry. But I can't knock it out of my head. And I don't know if that's me searching for an easy answer, or me searching for a higher meaning, or me seeking a way to stay in community or what. So I don't feel that I am called, but ever since GC, it hasn't left my brain." So what does all this mean? I don't know. Time to get on with some of their suggestions for discerning what this nagging thought means. Time to do what my Youth Forum shirt says. Listen. Pray. Pause. Repeat. Stay tuned. post/read comments
It's been almost a week now, and I'm still having trouble making any definite statements about General Council, other than it was intense. I'm going to try and describe some of the highlights, from my point of view, and from there I may or may not write more about them another day. On Saturday night all of the commissioners under thirty years old were invited to meet up so we could acquaint ourselves with people from some of the other conferences and decide if we would have any sort of 'program', and if so what that would look like. There were about thirty five people in the room, some of which dropped out of sight shortly thereafter, but most of us chose to mingle in this ragtag group. Fifteen of those people were from London Conference, where I am from. Sunday night four or five of us decided to skip the meeting, as there wasn't any business going on, but more introductory stuff, which means long-winded speeches. An excellent conversation was had, which started off serious, then veered towards silly, and then veered right back into serious. There were in-jokes created and lots of laughs were had. One thing I learned was that any time I skipped the meeting, it was for good reason, and that the talks I had with people in those moments ranged from the silliest stuff to some of the most vulnerable moments I have experienced thus far in my life. They were all moments I will cherish long after I forget what happened in the meetings themselves. On Wednesday we had the opportuntiy to go on a field trip. I went to Kakabeka Falls to get away from the intensity I'd mentioned earlier. It was quiet, and I had Less Than Jake playing on my mp3 player, and it gave me some time to decompress. It was a great afternoon and when I got back, there was a proposal half written. One day on the walk from breakfast to the meeting space, a number of the under 30s were talking gibberish as usual. Out of some off-hand comment about an under-30 moderator came one of the longest and most important discussions about youth and young adult ministries I have ever witnessed and been privileged to be a part of. This discussion split off into sub-discussions, spanned over the meetings of the morning, lunch, our field trips, dinner, into the evening, then into the night, to Tim Horton's and into the morning. We consulted conference executives and people at the business table. People talked, fought and laughed, and in the process of a full 24 hours, the first draft of a very cool proposal to the 39th General Council was laboured over. I only stayed up until 03h00 that night. As I mentioned in my last post, I got very little sleep. I was there for nine nights. The earliest I got to bed was 01h30. The latest I woke up was 08h00. Though by Thursday morning I was very tired, I never noticed it. All I knew was that something was going on, something that meant something big, and I wanted to be a part of every moment that I could. I still haven't figured out what the something big was, but I know it was there. I think one of the things on my cosmic todo list for the next few weeks and months, is to allow myself to realize what was going on at General Council. It's also kick-started my lagging and discouraging job search. What that something big is, I'm not sure. I'm sure that when I do figure it out though, it will be something that my meagre words will never be able to fully communicate. I will try though. post/read comments
I am tired. Very, very tired. Youth Forum got to vote today. Big moments. Drama. Laughter. I'm so glad I am here. PS - Alan: thanks for talking last night, I'm feeling a lot better today. Miss you and I will see you soon. I have risen above the point of exhaustion and am now in a state of constant hyperactivity. Earliest to bed thus far: 0230, latest awake in the morning, 0745h. They gave youth forum a vote. !!!!!!!!! EEP! I am more excited about that then I am about the proposal that I wrote into the wee hours of the morning, three days in a row. We're turning our report books into paper crane boxes. Togetherness and community and EEP! we're still in commissions at 1230???? Somebody told me general council was boring but they were very very wrong. London Conference is so far ahead with their camping and youth and young adult ministries. 34%??? Talk about a radical, rebel conference. Mom, please make sure there's not crappy food at home on monday and please please please let me sleep in. Kakabeca Falls and the friendly woodland creatures. I don't think I'm making sense at all any more. There's so much I need to get out and my fingers just are not working fast enough. I think I forgot dvorak but at the same time I can't do qwerty. It's a simple algorithm and all but my fingers don't do origami. Subversion just isn't a computer application. Dream BIG. C'est vrai. Gotta go do the important work of the church and make paper cranes. post/read comments
Forgive me for any typos, I am at a qwerty keyboard for the first time in months, and it just bites. So, two things of note today: I am flying tomorrow to Thunder Bay via Toronto, and I will be liquid-free, as per the current regulations. I will be attending General Council, the national meeting of the United Church of Canada. I should add some links here, but typing is hard. Contact me via my gmail account which will be easier to access for me. it's my first name DOT my last name @ . Now for thing 2: my reaction as to this xkcd strip. It didn't strike me in the area of blog censoring due to future readers or anything like that. It was more about how mundane I have started feeling each day become... the comic just really felt like a kind of rallying cry for those of us who spend so much of our lives plugged in to our RSS readers and all that. Will consider essaying something about it at a later date. May have a chance to blog while at GC. Will probably decide against it as I want to participate in non-online events for the next bit. post/read comments
I had a lot of things to say about the latest xkcd strip, but yesterday morning, when I had those thoughts, my server was throwing mySQL errors. Instead, I want you guys to comment on the comic and tell me if/how it hit you, and if I then feel the need later next week, I shall give you my own feelings on it. post/read comments |
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spy0010's journal
