My time at the Ark is coming to a close. In less than 3 days, I will be on a crowded plane, trying to act less afraid than I'll feel inside.

John is playing pool by himself Nick and Kris are attempting to re-string Steph's Ukulele. Jenna and Char are talking. Ashley is watching I love Lucy. It seems like a lifetime ago that I arrived here, where everyone was so over-eager to spend time with one another that it felt like a never ending daycare or perpetual recess. But now, here we are, doing are separate activities in the same room, as comfortable as old friends....but likewsie as disinterested, in some respects. How sad it is that we ever stop being in awe of one another as creations fearfully and wonderfully made by God. How sad it is that we do not constantly see one another as works of art, better than any museum or Cathedral ceiling.

(Please note, this next section was written after an intense night of watching Pride and Prejudice. Therefore, it is over-dramatic and over romantic, but hopefully you get something out of it before you vomit)

In anticipating leaving this place, I have a great melancholy that I can't shake. I seem to be the kind of person who misses a place before I have even left it. I get attatched to places and things so much that I always feel like nothing could be better than the life I am experiencing at the present moment. I felt very much like that before I left to come to the ark (my "list of fears" blog sums that up nicely). It's ironic that now I find myself unwilling to leave the place I once feared.

But why should I fear? What have I to fear? Has not God shown me that my fears are always irrational, and that he always provides love and comfort, peace and beauty wherever I find myself? It is a terrible part of the human condition that we fear the unknown; for as Christians, should we not rest assured that the future IS known, and that God has good plans to prosper us and give us a hope and a future? I suppose I fear the unknown despite God's plans because I also understand that although I have a loving God, it is no guarantee that this life will be easy, or "good" in the human sense of the word. Our good is not his good. Our sense of being "loved" is not always his love. Therefore I fear. I fear being pushed out of my cushioned chair and hitting the pavement hard (metaphorically speaking). But who should fear this when they have God's hand to hold?

As this small but significant portion of my life ends, I pray that I do not dwell on the changes taking place here as negative. To be able to flow serenely with the ebb and flow of the tides of change is a virtue surely, one that I wish I was better able to acquire. Places change, people change, relationships change, but God does not change. God's hand does not let go. Therefore, bestill this heart, and bring on the waves.

Page France Inspiration

Yesterday, I was quite distracted while trying to write, and didn't get a chance to touch on some of the other thoughts I've had over the past few weeks, so I will elaborate now.

As I've said, I've been thinking a lot about love; the ways I give it, the ways I expect to recieve it, and the ways God has designed it. In the barn, I have tried my best to get them to play Page France on a regular basis, since clearly they are amazing, and singing their lyrics gives me comfort, often more so than the worship music that is also thrown into the mix, with it's live versions full of people screaming, or it's fast, drum-solo filled version of "in the secret".
A Page France lyric that sent me into a long train of thought was this:

"Love until your hands bleed"

I've obviously heard this lyric before, and contemplated it before perhaps, but it seemed to me so relevant to my thoughts lately that I couldn't help but take special note of it. What does this lyric really mean? What kind of love is required in order to make one's hands bleed? It implies action, it implies physical labour or deeds. It implies loving to the point of suffering, loving to the point of physical pain. It is the suffering of Jesus.

In my life, I have always given and recieved love in specific ways. It normally comes down to things like encouragements/compliments, gifts, touches/hugs, and quality time spent with a person. If I do not recieve those from someone, or if I do not see them portraying those specific things to me or other people, I assume that they know nothing of love, or that they have no idea how to show affection. But I'm starting to realize how wrong this type of thinking is. These types of affection are merely between humans. I limit my ideas of love then to only what humans are able to express in words or physical objects to one another. But as I contemplated loving until your hands bleed, I realized how many other ways people show love in this world, and not simply showing love to one another, but showing love to God.

One thing I have never mastered is a good work ethic. Most things in my life have come easily to me, and when they don't, I simply give up or move on and find something easier. If school had ever really been a struggle, I probably would have given up on it; if music had proven too difficult or time consuming, I surely wouldn't have pursued it like I have. Although I have been told that I have great leadership skills, I have never been given a promotion, and I care very little for my performance in most of the workplaces I've been in. This has never truly concerned me before, until I thought about it in the context of loving God through work.

Can one not show love through their work ethic? A man who suffers through a terrible job without complaint, a person who works hard without rest, a person who endures hardship for long periods of time....these actions have never occured to me to be acts of love before. But now, I see that if they are done out of obedience for God, then surely they are actions filled with love for God, and though they are not outwardly aknowledged, I find more and more that there is a time for outward action/love for God, and a time for inward, secret action/love.

What do I do out of love and obedience for God on a regular basis in secret, away from recogntion, away from reciprocation, away from showing love in a human-to-human kind of way....? Who's approval am I seeking? Could I ever love until my hands bled without complaint?

Love, beauty, Page France, Awesome Chicks, Earl Grey Green Tea

Again, this has been a long time coming. I just want to note a conversation going on around me:

Chris is sitting next to me, asking Jenna questions from this game Andrew bought at the thrift store entitled "Urban Myth", where you have to guess whether the myth on the card is true or false. When asked whether slinkies were sold on every continent, Jenna's logic went something like this:

"Hmmm, that would mean they'd sell them in Antarctica...do they have stairs in Antarctica? No. I'm going with false."

Amazing.

Anywhoo, an update on my life:

I wanted to write a post a while ago about an amazing conversation Jenna and I had about the nature of love. Here is the readers digest version: Could it be possible that all love is Narcissistic? Meaning, when one falls in love, are they not simply falling in love with the version of the person they have created in their mind? Is love not simply finding someone that provokes ones own imagination, and fufills some prior standard that you have created in your own brain that you are simply projecting onto another person? Do you really ever truly love someone, or just the image that you have of them? This certainly explains why some people fall in love with aweful people, because they have only fallen in love with their own version of that person, not who they really are...Just a thought.

In other news, this past Saturday, we were blessed with a day off, meaning, for the first time in about a month and a half, we had more than ONE DAY OFF IN A ROW!! So, this is what 2 days off in a row looked like for me: (if you just want the "thoughts on life" portion of this update, just skip this section)

Friday:
The girls and I (steph is now playing a lovely song on the piano, I am quite distracted by it, and it makes me feel like i should be writing a love song or something right now...) planned a "boys appreciation night" for the 6 other male team members, consisting of us writing encouragement notes to them, and sealing them with corks in wine bottles, and then sinking those wine bottles with bags of stones in the lake, and then hiding building supplies in the forest for making forts on the beach later, then making a truck into a pirate ship, then getting them pirate costumes, then making them a treasure map with all their treasure/building supply locations, then having a sweet campout on top of a sandhill overlooking the beach, with grilled cheese and beer and wine and banana boats and smores and guitars and blankets and wonderfulness. (I am quite sad to say that because of their fort-building efforts, many a boy now has poison ivy. Woops!)

Saturday:
I wake up from my surprizingly good sleep under the fort in the sand at about 6:30, and I'm on the road by 10 (Getting a 138 speeding ticket along the way), heading towards Waterloo to see Joanna et les femmes fantastiques! We go to the market, I buy 5 packs of blueberries for 5 dollars. We go to Zellers, intent on finding a sprinkler to purchase and jump through on Joanna's lawn. Joanna's french friends come over, I get tired from lack of sleep and take a nap instead of sprinkler-ing it up. Later, we take a walk through Waterloo park, go to the grocery store, where I feel faint and so start eating the first thing that I encounter, which is a box of life cereal. We get some iced tea goodness at starbucks, hit up LCBO, go back to the house. We make bbq chicken and peppers while the frenchies make us home made pina coladas, and the 8 of us who have now assembled at the house decide to move a table and many many candles out on to the lawn to have dinner. The frenchies also make us sweet potato fries, followed by a home-made chocolate cake dessert that cosists of melted 70% chocolate...holy crap. I have wonderful table convo with Blythe, Jo and I take an encouraging walk around the neighbourhood, and I also bring the pot of chocolate mix along and eat the leftovers with a spoon while we tell each other how awesome we are.

Sunday

I meet Jenna at her house near Burlington, where I meet her parents who are wonderful, and her 1 year old dog who is actually 90 years old inside. We take the go train downtown where we discover downtown has actually turned into the Sahara Desert. We meet Laura Mensinga briefly in Kensington, where she tells me about her potential trip to Rwanda, and I get uuber exctied. Jenna buys a dress. We check out our potential new home for next year, and are greeted with a socially akward man who was exactly who I thought he would be, and also his socially akward room mate who stands around far-too-tight bike shorts and short shirt, while contradictorally eating a bagel and drinking a beer. Needless to say, we were discouraged. Then, we miss our train by 3 minutes, equalling more discouragement. But, all is not lost. We will renew our house-looking one of these days, and find the community we are seeking, or else create our own.

Regardless of the downs of this weekend, Jenna and I talked on the way home about how this summer has already been filled with thoughts of beauty and love. I am constantly romanced by God. I find everything beautiful, I find everything romantic. I find myself falling in love on a daily basis, not with anyone specific, but just everything in general. Every moment here (well, maybe not in the barn...barf) is beautiful. I get overwhelmed by the peacefulness of this place. I smile to myself throughout the day thinking about the beauty that surrounds me. When I'm away from this place, I desire to be back here, and I only hope I can find a place in the fall that makes me feel this alive. To feel a part of the beauty of God is something that I desire for the rest of my life.

A confusion of thoughts/ My life in Pictures

I have about a zillion thoughts running through my head. I pretty much contemplated my entire life between the hours of 7 and noon today, and I wish I had written them all down at lunch time; for now, as I sit here with my stawberry-and-angel-food-cake-filled-bowl, my thoughts escape me, at least in any articulate way.

I thought mostly about the people in my life, past and present, that have inspired me, and wondered if I have let their examples really affect my life. I have known some amazing people, people who are daily making a difference, people who had big dreams and pursued them. I have known some amazingly romantic people, amazingly dramatic people, amazingly intelligent people...and above all else, amazingly loving people. But the questions I asked myself was: "who have I become because of them? Have I changed my life at all? Have I become an inspiring person? Have I pursued MY dreams?"

I struggle with the notion of contentment. I often find myself dreaming big, but being content with mediocre. I am fairly content with anything that comes my way, but is this a good thing? Sometimes I wish I was discontent more often, so as to push past the mediocre and become something more... I can't collect my thoughts any more clearly right now, so I will just end this blog with some beautiful moments from the past month.

The only way to capture nick on camera is shots like this. This is our electric piano which I hope to one day make sweet techno tunes on.

A cliff face full of sparrow homes...This, and the next few shots, are at the port in Port Rowan, a photographer's dream.
Kat climbing the campbell's-soup-can-like lighthouse in Port Rowan.