Theology in action! (Pow, Biff & Zok)

Once, I was casually chatting online with a Christian acquaintance of mine, and I told her I was studying theology. Her response was, "My sister has a book about that [theology]...but I'm not really interested, it's too hard for me." That day the cosmos resounded with my anguished cry of "AAARRRRGGGHHH!!!!" (Yes, Amp, I was feeling crazy...crazy frustrated!)

Theology means the study/knowledge of God. If you are a Christian (or pretty much any sort of theist), then THEOLOGY IS FOR YOU. It is your business to learn about God, so get on it already! You don't need a Bachelor of Theology like I have, but you have to be interested in learning about God! If you've got the Holy Spirit living with you, if you're a part of the body of Christ, then you are qualified to study, ask questions, and learn about God. Studying theology academically is cool too (I love it!), but that's only one way of learning about God.

For an example of theology in action, check out the discussion on the Real Live Preacher site. (Thank you Elliot for pointing it out in your comment on my help my unbelief post a few days back.) I like what one person wrote there:

"The Bible, lifted to the level of inerrancy, is a comforting thing. Heck, what do we need God for if we already have the rulebook written out for us? Why do we need prayer? If it's as clear as you seem to think, why do we need theologians or clergy or teachers or scholars to talk about it? Why does it need interpretation? Oh, and is the Bible more perfect in English? In Greek? In Hebrew? And how, as an English-speaking woman from the 20th-21st centuries, am I ever to get to the most perfect translation?"

Honestly, I am more comfortable with this kind of "theology in action" than I am with anything I read in a book during my B.Th. degree program. This is the people of God wrestling with questions of how to be faithful! This is exciting, and it matters! The Spirit is moving! Thanks be to God!

This is why I'm okay with not having The Answer on homosexuality. I am still satisfied to cry "Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!" I'm simply not comfortable with having all the answers. I cannot master God.

...

Wow, I feel like a preacher...see, this is why I need a church job! *sigh*

blue yellow (8-legged) orange white

Okay, so after I posted my crabby post, I consoled myself by breaking out my brand new toothbrush. Buying fancy toohbrushes is one of the pleasures I have always permitted myself, and I was saving this one for a special occasion. So, I threw out my fuzzy old one (it had rubber gum massagers on the side) and I used my brand new toothbrush with criss-cross bristles and yellow and blue racing stripes. I firmly believe that the racing stripes on the handle will contribute to my daily battle against plaque, tooth decay, and gingivitis.

In other news, I have a list of nifty things I've seen and smelled lately:

On Sunday when I was sitting in emergency with poor puking Aaron, I saw a little spider. It was amusing itself by industriously letting itself down a strand of silk attached to the corner of the counter in Aaron's cubicle, and then climbing back up again. I thought about killing it, because I'm not a huge fan of bugs, and it was awfully close to Aaron's head. However, I was in need of a friend right then so I let it be. When the nurse came in, I silently willed her not to see the spider, and she didn't. I did whisper to Aaron that I had a new friend, but he was asleep and/or delirious, so I'm not sure he ever knew about the other inhabitant of his cubicle.

On the bus today there was a Sikh man with a turban and a moustache that was waxed into fancy curls. It reminded me a bit of that Princess movie with the orphanage and the Indian man through the window. That movie is one of the things that made me love the colour orange, even though I think I only caught the last half hour of it on TV once.

I walked over to my inlaws' place the other day, and I noticed that it is now officially that part of the year where Vancouver becomes Lotusland. That means that it now permanently smells like flowers outdoors, and it will until late in the fall. Today I was most delighted to find that the smells of daffodils (which I also love, because it somehow reminds me of Germany) was being replaced by one of my favourite flower smells ever. I don't know what the name of it is, but they are little white flowers with messy-looking yellow bits in the middle, and they grow on bushes. They smell so sweet! Possibly the only better flower smell is lilacs. Especially now that I will forever associate them with the day Aaron asked me to marry him. Perhaps I'll tell that story another time.

crabby is the word of the day

Today my body is crabby, and my motivation is crabby. I am crabbily unmotivated. And I must be fighting some kind of flu, because I'm not outright sick, but I sure feel like crap! Still being sore from climbing up, down and in a mountain last weekend doesn't help either.

Here is an abbreviated list of everything I need to do yesterday:
- hunt for more jobs
- clean the house
- find homes for all the random stuff in this apartment that still does not have a place
- write thank-you cards for wedding gifts
- do some typing/scanning for this dude who's paying me
- update my blog
- find a good job
- hang out with my aunt and with a friend I should have had coffee with weeks ago
- dryclean my wedding dress and put it away
- buy containers for spices (our spice cupboard is a disaster of little plastic bags)
- GET A JOB

Yeah. In case you're wondering about the job thing, let me explain. I work part-time at a coffee shop. My husband is a full-time student. You may be surprised to find that our books don't always balance. So, I need a full-time job. However, I'm very sick of just having student/summer-style jobs that any shmuck can do. I want a job that is meaningful and fulfilling and actually stretches my gifts and talents. Or at least one that is better than student/summer-type jobs that any shmuck can do.

I want to have a church job. This could be anything from being a pastor, to being a church secretary, to having a conference office job, to having almost any kind of job in a Christian not-for-profit organization. I just want to put my education, talents and passions to work to further the Kingdom of God and to make the Church a healthier body. So if you know anyone out there who wants to hire a dedicated woman with gifts of leadership, administration, and organization, TELL ME PLEASE. Oh, and the job has to be in Vancouver, because my husband is still in school here. How in the world do you go about finding a church job? So far I've been looking for relevant church-y e-mail addresses online and spamming them with my resume in hopes that they have a job for me. Its given me one lead on a potential job to begin in May...that's a start...

I've got to go get ready for my coffee shop job. Hopefully I don't have to go home early again because of nausea. My body is so crabby.

this land is your land, this land is my land...

A German tourist couple walked into my coffee shop today. I couldn't help but strike up a conversation with them, because it's awkward when you understand someone's private conversations and they don't think you do. (I lived in Berlin from 1989-1993, and am still somewhat fluent in German.) We ended up talking for quite awhile, and I was pleased to find that, once used, my German was not as bad as I had feared.

The couple spoke of how different it is here in Canada where all sorts of people live and work together without incident. (Coming from Toronto, I actually find Vancouver less multi-cultural and more racist. Here there are three basic categories: white, Asian, and Indian. And everyone here "knows" that Asians are bad drivers and Indians are noisy, etc. I guess that being white means I don't hear much about what the others think of us. In Toronto, however, there are too many different kinds of people to keep track of, so the stereotypes seem to be fewer and further between. Either that or they're so ridiculously abundant that nobody can keep track of them all.)

Back to our German couple. (I have a bracket habit, and I'm truly sorry if it annoys you. This isn't supposed to be a formal essay anyway, it's supposed to be a journal of sorts, and as such I find brackets a useful tool to help organise my thoughts as they come out.) Back to our German couple. (I'm so funny.) The husband talked about how after 9-11 Germans got even more fearful and suspicious of the Muslims living among them. This man said that he was afraid to ride the bus because somebody might attack him, and because he was afraid of the people speaking in different languages because he didn't know what they could be saying. Obviously this man had some anxiety issues, and I got the impression he was also getting professional help for them, but nevertheless there was some truth in his words. I also remember Germany as being a far more racist place than Canada, and how the Germans were afraid of the Turks (a significant minority in Berlin).

Here are a few of our thoughts on why Germany might be more racist or fearful of the stranger:

Here in Canada, we all have a sense of being newcomers to the country, except for the Aboriginal peoples who lived here before the rest of us showed up. As such, we have more of a sense of being equal participants in making this country what it is and what it will become. In Germany, the people have no memory of a time when their ancestors did not live there, unless you go back before the stone age. Their culture and identity is quite solidly established in that land, and any newcomer is obviously an outsider. In Canada, we are (almost) all newcomers together, and we have that sense of foreigness in common. In Germany, any non-German is a newcomer, and they are often unknown, mistrusted and even feared.

Also, since World War II, Germans have had to deal with the aftermath of Hitler's overblown sense of national pride and superiority. Today, any German who is too proud of his/her country or heritage is quickly accused of being a Nazi. The country is still suffering shame and humiliation and dares not encourage too much national self-esteem lest the ghost of Hitler rear its ugly head once again. Here in Canada, we can have much pride in our country, for we have made it what it is, and it is generally considered to be a good place. (I do not wish to deny our nation's failures with respect to our Aboriginal peoples, the foreign blood that was spilled to build our railroads, and other such tragedies. It simply does not overshadow our national identity in the same way that Germany's is. Perhaps it should.) The ability to have pride in one's national identity is a great strength. The shame or meekness that has been imposed on the German self-identity is harmful in that it makes them more afraid of the stranger.

Quite frankly, Germans are a strong majority in Germany, and they are not forced into much interaction with their minorities and immigrants. It is human nature to fear the unknown. The German gentleman feared the unknown Turks and Arabs that lived in/around Frankfurt. I grew up in a multi-cultural country/city/school system, and my best friend in school was a Muslim. It is hard to fear your best friend and others like her. Familiarity builds comfort and comfort builds trust.

I think Canada is a fantastic country, and I'm proud of it. I'm not proud of its mistakes and failures, but I am proud of our cultural mosaic and the understanding and trust it builds between the peoples of the world who have become neighbours in this land.

help my unbelief

Today all the newspapers showed pictures of Jim Loney happily arrived at the Toronto airport, surrounded by his siblings and partner. It's the "partner" thing kind of kicked me in the gut. Honestly, I still don't know how to reconcile the Christian faith with homosexuality (or bisexuality, transgenderedness, other-spiritedness, autosexuality or whatever other orientations have popped up since I last checked the politically correct encyclopaedia).

On the one hand, I believe homosexuals are the same as straight people. They can be promiscuous or chaste, sick and twisted or kind and wise, Christian or agnostic or whatever else, and they are certainly sinners in need of God's grace (just like the rest of us). I don't think anyone's sexual orientation has ever gotten in the way of my enjoying being friends, colleagues or family with any of them. And yet, something about the non-heterosexual options out there just doesn't ring true in my ears. Heterosexuality just makes so much sense! God made two different kinds of people, woman and man, and they fit together so well. I think if it didn't matter which genders of people fall in love with each other, then God wouldn't have bothered with gender and just made us all able to procreate with any other mature adult.

Take this one example: I worked with a lesbian woman, and I went to a party she hosted at her house for all of our colleagues. She has four daughters of her own and a female partner. While it seemed to me like they were a happy and loving family, I also got really sad at the thought that they don't have any significant men in their lives. It seemed weird that one could theoretically fulfill all one's relational needs (family, love, sex, support, companionship etc.) without ever contacting a member of the opposite sex.

Here's an alternate example: A mentor and member of my home congregation came out of the closet and declared herself a lesbian. She said that through much prayer and struggling with God, she had heard God say to her that he created her just as she was (a lesbian) and that he loved her that way. You know what? I have never been able to look her in the face and say, "Well, you heard God wrong," and I don't think I ever will be able to. Her faith seemed to be alive and well and growing for all I could tell, and I didn't understand how that could be if she was ignoring God.

As for the Bible, I can't see anywhere that it supports homosexual (and other non-heterosexual) relationships. Of course the Bible emphasizes love, but that's all in heterosexual or non-sexual terms. Yes, there was that bit about David and Jonathan, but I think that's a pretty weak argument for a God-blessed sexual union between the two of them.

From prayer, reading the Bible, observing the world around me, and speaking with others of all sorts of persuasions, homosexuality still does not ring true with me as something that God intends or blesses. And yet, I cannot deny the faith of my non-heterosexual brothers and sisters in Christ. So, where does that leave me? Still confused. I am reminded of the man who cried out to Jesus, "Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!" I just can't figure out which part is the belief and which is the unbelief.

An Epic Weekend

Wow, what a weekend! I have so much stuff to say! I think I'm going to split it into two or three posts so y'all don't get overwhelmed. I don't use "y'all" very often, but sometimes it is just the best contraction EVER. I find it very useful. It's not quite up there with "pointy" and "abort" (which, as some of you know, are my two most favourite words), but it's still pretty cool. I don't care what you think of confederate America, they came up with "y'all", and that's at least worth something. Although I do believe that slavery and the Georges Bush are somewhat regrettable ("somewhat" applying only to the Bush thing and not at all to the slavery thing--that's just plain regrettable).

*Ahem*...back to the weekend. This weekend, Aaron and I went up to a camp retreat with the youth group from our church. On the ride up, I quite unintentionally used reverse psychology to get three thirteen-year-old boys hooked on Bjork. I handed them my CD binder to choose some music and said, "There's mostly just mix CD's in there...oh, and the CD nobody ever wants to listen to."
"What if I want to listen to it?"
"NO, REALLY. Nobody ever wants to listen to it." (I was being completely honest here, no foolin'!)
"I want to listen to it."
"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you."
So, I pop in good old Medulla, Bjork's weirdest album yet (and that's saying something). Lo and behold, the boys thought it was pretty cool, and even headbanged to a few of the more upbeat songs. They asked to borrow it (except I had just promised it to someone else), and wrote down the name of the artist and album so they could download it. Go figure.

The highlight of the weekend was spelunking on Saturday. That means having fun in caves. To get to the caves, we had to hike up to the top of a mountain, and that took us almost 2 hours. Thankfully, the leaders of the excursion made us all do it in silence. It meant less complaining, and more noticing/admiring our surroundings. The view was pretty darn cool, the Fraser river was below us, and there was lots of moss and ferns and it was pretty. When we got to the top of the mountain, we reversed directions and began climbing down, but this time into the mountain. The caves were neat and dark and mildewy and chilly and I got really dirty and climbed up and down rocks and shimmied through a little tunnel and scraped my knee. It was awesome. Then we had to climb down again, and we were already sore from climbing up, so it was kind of ouchy on the way down. But it was not nearly as ouch as I am today. Oh boy!

That evening we played a wide game in the dark where the point was to run/sneak around in the dark without flashlights and capture each other, etc., and the precise rules were a mere framework for all that fun in the dark. I had a fantastic time! I decided to play the role of the well-concealed ambusher guarding a certain location of interest. I had the perfect lair! I hid behind a tree where a yardlight was illuminating the area I was guarding and also blinding any approaching sneaky people. Just when they got close to where I was, they would start to sprint, for their goal was in sight and I was not! But alas and alack! In the blink of an eye, I would be sprinting right at them! The first time I captured somebody, I actually clotheslined myself on a low branch just at the moment of the nabbing. The second time, I completely took the guy down. As we were both sitting up after our tumble, I realised that I had nabbed an unsuspecting camp kid (whose parents run the camp) who wasn't even playing at all! I caught him COMPLETELY unawares, as he didn't even know there was a game going on. Thankfully, being a permanent resident of a summer camp must make one accustomed to all sorts of oddities in the name of fun, and we both laughed it off and thoroughly enjoyed retelling the tale!

Sadly, our retreat weekend was cut somewhat short by Aaron contracting a random but vicious little flu bug that had him vomit the entire contents of his stomach and then some over the course of a few hours. When there was nothing left, we drove home. More specifically, I drove us home. This was a major accomplishment for me, because I am not much of a driver. I'm not a bad driver, I'm just an inexperienced and easily intimidated driver. I drove on fast 6-lane highway for 2 hours and then through the city all the way back to our house. I'm proud of me. I'm pretty sure I also broke the spirit if not the letter of the law because my Ontario G1 license says I must not drive on any 400-series highways (the #1 in my part of BC is a close equivalent, although as anyone can see, #1 is not a #400-something), and I'm supposed to have someone with 5 years driving experience in the passenger seat (it never mentions anything about that person not being deliriously ill and/or asleep with the seat fully reclined). But I was good and nobody pulled me over, so I got away with it. Anyway, by the time we went to bed last night Aaron had a crazy high fever (we didn't have a thermometer to measure it) and I was afraid because he had puked away most of his liquids that day and was probably quite dehydrated. It was like sleeping next to a thermonuclear reactor, he was so hot. Vicious little bug. But half way through the night the fever broke and I could rest a little easier. Today he's recovering quite well and he'll be able to go to school again tomorrow.

The end.

my new favourite customer

Today its grey and windy, but it's really cool! First of all, the clouds are high enough that I can still see the mountains, so I don't fell claustrophobic at all. I feel claustrophobic when the clouds are so low that I can't see anything beyond a city block or two. Second, the cherry blossoms are starting to fall, so it looked like it was snowing, only it was more joyful because blossoms skip and twirl around far better than snow. And third, it was still warm enough that it was truly enjoybale! The occasional spatter of raindrops made no difference. The weather was good.

Today was also super-awesome because I got to test-drive a Segway. There's this regular customer at my coffee shop who has one, and yesterday I commented that I'd never seen him driving it, I'd only ever seen him bring it in the store to park. So, he asked what time I was off today, and he brought it by! He even brought me a helmet. I had to keep telling myself to wipe the idiotic grin off my face, because I must have looked like the giddy fool I am. Those things are really well designed! They have different speeds and all kinds of failsafes, and they balance themselves without so much as a shudder. Seriously, you can just stand on one and let go. One day when I'm rich, I'm totally buying one of those. Hopefully by then they'll come down in price.

rejoice, remember, pray, ACT

Jim Loney, Harmeet Sooden and Norman Kember are free! Praise God! Remember the martyr Tom Fox. Lord, have mercy. May the captives be freed. Your kingdom come. Amen.

the frog day of my life

My husband is a man of peculiar talents. He has a talent for identifying birds and spouting random facts about them. He has a talent for playing darts. He climbs things. But today, the one talent that shone above all others was his knack for making friends with stuffed animals. Somehow he manages to give them far more character and personality than one could ever imagine a plush object could have.

As I snuck out of bed this morning, I grabbed my frog (same as Jan's) and put him in Aaron's arms, kind of like Indiana Jones swapping a sack of sand for the relic on the booby-trapped pedestal. Just before I left for work, he wandered out of the bedroom with the frog tucked into the belt of his housecoat as if they'd always been inseparable best pals. As I hugged him goodbye, he somehow managed to get the frog hugging my shoulder without me noticing. Then the frog waved goodbye.

When I came home, I found my frog had climbed into the venetian blinds of our living room window and poked his head between them so as better to observe the outside world passing by. However, my first impression was distinctly that the frog was mooning me and anyone else who pleased to enter our apartment!

In conclusion, I love my frog and I love my husband, and most of all, I love to laugh at them both.

grass

Today I am sad because a friend of mine is going through a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad time, and it makes me want to cry.

I am also happy today because it is the first day of spring! Huzzah! I know because I smelled it in the air, and I felt the sun on my face. I also smelled freshly mowed grass. I am so ready for this! You know what's funny? I could have sworn I smelled the first day of spring a few times already this year. I think maybe there are several key days in the transition from winter to spring, and you can smell each step. So really, the first time I smelled spring, it was nothing compared to today. It just keeps getting better! This can be used as a metaphor for very many things, I'm sure. Today I choose to apply it to my brand new marriage, because each week seems bigger and better than the last.

on the theme of teeth

At church on Sunday I met a British man with really bad teeth!

Outside I saw a puppy who was desperately playing tug of war with her owner by biting on a dangling end of her leash. The owner was not impressed and just kept walking with a look of absolute boredom on her face. The puppy, however, was undaunted, and continued to have the time of her life. I think the dangling handle end of the leash was probably more effective at keeping the dog nearby than the collar end.

I had a good, long weekend and I'm dreading going back to work today. I just don't want to! I need a better job. I will grit my teeth and bear it. Hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised and have a good day!

On Saturday, when we were in the old folks' home, I turned a corner and saw this little girl in a shiny purple dress standing in a corner. At first I thought she had been bad and was sent there for a time out, but as she turned around and peeked at me with a pouty face, I realized that she was probably scared. I used to be very scared of nursing homes when I was a kid. From my point of view, they were fully of zombies that had once been somebody else's grandparents. These zombies always wanted a piece of me (a pinched cheek or squeezed arm), and they seemed to cloud around me as if attracted to my young blood (I suppose I was a pretty darn cute kid). This nightmarish view of The Nursing Home was only reinforced (or perhaps created?) on one particular occasion when my mom left me alone in a lounge while she went to the washroom. One of the zombies beckoned and I was foolish enough to comply. Once I got close enough, the leering zombie grabbed my arm and would not let go. Really. By the time my mom got out of the bathroom to pry me loose, I was crying up a storm. It has taken many years for me to get over my dislike of nursing homes, and to this day I still don't feel quite at home in them. So, I think I might have understood the little girl in the purple dress who had run away and hid from her family viewing--excuse me--visit of great-grandpa.

So, I realize that was material from a few days ago, but it wouldn't leave me alone until I posted it.

In other news, yesterday I felt crazy. Crazy in a scary way. Sometimes it happens to me that my insides get all tight and my brain clouds over with old emotions that I haven't banished yet. I have this mental image that I'm sure my brain copied from some movie I've seen where I'm in a car and suddenly a yellow post-it note flutters up and sticks to the windshield. Then another one appears, then another. Soon, yellow post-its are rushing at the windshield with a noise like something from The Birds, and the windshield is covered and I can't see a thing. All these post-its are old feelings that I never got out, like "I'm mad at so-and-so for something," or "I'm stressed out about that stupid thing I did," and so on. It's as if every time I fail to express the emotion I'm feeling, my brain files another post-it note to bring out on a crazy day. And on the crazy day when all I can see is post-its of old emotions, it seems like the only way to get rid of them is to feel each one and therefore eliminate them from my emotional backlog. But there are too many, and I don't know where to start, and all I want is a proper set of windshield wipers to just eliminate them all and start over, but I'm terrified that if I do that, they'll just all be re-filed for a future assault of my mind's windshield and I'll be worse off than before. Anyway, it's scary and it makes me feel crazy.

Today, on the other hand, was okay. Perhaps I managed to successfully banish my emotional post-its...we'll see if they reappear in a few days/weeks or not.

Today I saw an absolutely perfect pink cherry blossom in the gutter of the street, unmarred in any way. It must have blown a long ways, because there weren't any pink-blooming trees for a few blocks around, and it must have landed precisely in that spot and not moved, otherwise it would have bruised already.

Neat-o.

today I celebrated life and death

Today I celebrated life and death. I called my friend Annemarie on her birthday, and that was full of life and happiness. She's having a party with lots of friends and I can't be there because I'm in the wrong province.

Then, my in-laws drove me out to Abbotsford (Aaron was working and couldn't come), and there I showed my husband's great-grandmother pictures of our wedding. I think she enjoyed it. It must have happened about 10 times that she pointed at Aaron and said, "Who's that?"
"That's Aaron, Oma."
"Oh. Isn't he handsome!"
"I think so too."
Finally near the end of the album she pointed at Aaron and said, "That's Aaron!"
"Yes, Oma."
"Isn't he handsome!"
"I think so too."
I am continually amazed that this 97-year-old woman whom I've seen on maybe half a dozen occasions actually knows who I am half the time. Frankly, I'm amazed she remembers Aaron. And my mother-in-law always speaks so fondly of her, she has obviously been a blessing to her family. She's at that lovely endgame part of her life where she might be gone any day, and that will be okay, and in the meantime everyone just enjoys her company.

After visiting with Mutti-Oma, we went to a rebirthday party for Aaron's cousin Karina. She was celebrating 10 years of life since the bone marrow transplant that cured her from Leukemia. I think everyone should have parties to celebrate that they're alive. I guess that's what birthdays are for, but we don't often think about them in that way. At this party, I quickly got used to being introduced as Aaron's wife, seeing as most of the relatives hadn't met me before. I'm a wife! And more importantly, I'm Aaron's!

There is a neat little story around Karina's family and her cure from cancer. When Karina was a baby (and had only one older sister), her grandfather died quite suddenly. That day, her mother announced that she had decided to have a third child because life was just too short and she couldn't handle losing a child and then only having one left. 10 months later Elena was born, and a dozen years after that, Elena proved to be the perfect match for a bone marrow transplant to save Karina's life.

Finally, just before I began this post I happened upon the news that Tom Fox is dead. He was a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq, and he was kidnapped in November. Now he has been killed while three hostages remain (presumably) alive. This made me sad. Sometimes I am guilty of too simple a faith, and in this case I had somehow always assumed that God would arrange for these hostages to be released safe and sound. I suppose God has a bigger point of view. This whole event has certainly brought much positive publicity to Christ's message of peace and to the faithfulness of at least some of his followers. I am grateful that there are some Christians out there whom Arabs and Muslims can respect. It gives me hope. Today I prayed that God will bring the year of Jubilee to Iraq and set the captives (all of them) free.

delinquent balloons

At the coffee shop today, a woman presented herself as being "from the regional office" and handed me a business card saying "Gwen Jackson, Investigator, Canada" and said she was here to review our video footage. Apparently our alarms had gone off several times the previous night while the store was closed. Despite the impressive title and business card, the woman herself looked like a frumpy 50-something house-mom who hadn't gone out in a few years. If I had that business card, I'd at least wear a pair of shades, even if they had to be those big monstrosities you can wear over your presctiption glasses for driving.

After a few brief moments with the video footage Gwen Jackson, Invesitagor, Canada declared, "Just as I thought. It was the balloon." It seems the culprit was an old helium balloon left over from when a fellow barista received a secret admirer's package on Valentine's day. Since it was a windy night, the draft had made it bob around more than usual and set off the motion detectors. According to The Investigator balloons are frequent culprits for setting off motion detectors.

our little friend

Yesterday I was going to write about how wonderful spring is (and so on) because not only is spring beautiful, but spring in Beautiful British Columbia is absolutely spectacular. Spring is right now at the point where a bunch of trees are pink and frilly with flowers and all the little snowbells have sprouted. It's kind of like spring taking a deep breath before the blast of frenzied plant mating rituals (which is what flowers really are, of course) that will come all at once.

Anyway, so spring was to be the topic. But then, after watching a late movie, I was closing the curtains so I could get ready for bed without the world watching, and I saw SNOW. Where did it come from? It wasn't there when we started the movie. So, I cashed in a months-old promise that Aaron made me in November that we would make a snowman the next time there was snow. He had a jalapeno for a nose and chocolate chips for buttons.

Sneezy, Dopey, Doc, Happy, Bashful, ______ and ______

Pickles, pink umbrella, waking up and feeling weightless instead of like a leaden statue, caramel drizzle, e-mails from old friends, a full 8-hour day of work, learning that the boss of my boss isn't so scary after all, curry rice, cute husband all sleepy and grumpy like a little boy: these were the joys of my day.

The pain in the ass of my day? The intar-web failed to function for an hour. This is even more frightening because we have an internet phone, so we also had no dial tone. To think I was going to get rid of my cellphone!

The other pain in the ass of my day was waking myself up early enough to make sure that my sleepy and grumpy husband would actually get out of bed and go to class, and then getting up myself two hours later to find him sleeping on the couch, even more sleepy and grumpy than before. Silly husband. (But he was so cute...)

Okay, another joy of my day is telling the world how cute Aaron is when he's sleepy and grumpy. He's sure to resent that if he ever gets around to reading my blog.

sleepover!

Last night Aaron and I had a sleepover. We had a nightsnack in bed, and we talked and laughed, and then Aaron read me a chapter from The Hobbit. I felt like we should have had a flashlight and read under the blanket like two little kids. It was fun!

Numchuks?

The trees are turning pink with blossoms!

Here's a crazy thing I saw: A young girl running out of my coffee shop
managed to spill her bag onto the floor. What did she drop? No, not a book or a doll or a juicebox...she dropped numchuks. (By the way, I have no idea how to spell that.) Weird or what?

This is why

When I lived 4000 km away from my boyfriend, I had a notebook. In my notebook, I would write down all the interesting things I had seen, heard, felt, smelled or tasted. When I wrote him a letter or card, I would tear out the filled pages and stuff them in the envelope. This way, I wouldn't waste my limited and expensive telephone time telling him about everything. Instead, I could spend the phone time just being with him.

The title for my blog is somewhat ironic. First of all, it is a direct reference to my heritage as a descendant of the Mennonites, who have liked to refer to themselves as Die Stillen im Lande, the quiet ones in the land, the ones who live simply, the ones who strive to be in the world but not of the world.

I, for one, enjoy being in the world. I like to experience it with all of my senses. I like to make a point of noticing the world around me in its minutest detail, to the best of my ability, so that I might be able to enjoy it more fully. As Noticer-of-the-World, I sometimes like to pretend I'm invisible, or so much a part of the world that I'm perfectly camouflaged. I like to be Die Stille im Lande, the quiet one in the land.

The irony comes in this: I'm a talker. As my husband (as the aforementioned boyfriend has come to be) will readily attest to, I need to get everything off my mind/chest/heart by saying it. I'm not really all that still or quiet. I haven't finished noticing the world until I've told someone about it.

So, I figured this might be a nifty subject for a blog. This is a new incarnation of my notebook. This way I can share it with more people than just Aaron (my husband). Perhaps even more importantly than sharing my world with perfect strangers, I also hope that this blog will help my distant friends, family and acquaintances keep in touch with me and how I'm doing.