inprint

One small step for poetry, one giant step for a poet. I have had a few poems published in Ink Pot Press' summer release, Inprint. The hardest part has been writing/revising the autobiographical blurb that they'll put on the web, and accompany it with a photo that won't make me look like a goon in a few years. Or months.

L'chaim!

4-9 a.m., Saturday, April 22nd

Yes, the rumours are true. www.myspace.com/saubrey

This morning the YWAMi.net team decided to brave as many misfortunes as possible. Up at 4:00 (that's a.m., baby) we dressed and stumbled out into the rain-slicked streets of predawn Brooklyn.

Temperature: 9 degrees.
Subway trip to NBC Studios, Rockefeller Center: 1 1/2 hours.
Cost: 4 US$, return.
Realizing that SNL was not being taped on the day that we showed up early for tickets: priceless.

Instead, we comforted ourselves at a local diner where two eggs and three pieces of bacon cost us $8 each. From there, we braved the elements towards Times Square to take a few shots. On the way home, we (OK, OK, it was entirely my mistake...it was early...I was tired) got off at 45th Street. Problem is: the church we were staying at was at 66th Street. Eleven blocks later, shivering, soaked, and exhausted, we showed up just in time for morning worship and session. It's going to be a looooong day.

Something that I've been enjoying tremendously is the bilingual nature of this conference. Everything has to be translated from English to French to accomodate the 20 or so staff members from YWAM Montréal. It's such a cool reminder of how diverse cities are.

prends mon âme
prends mon cœur
je te donne tout
prends ma vie
me voici
je te donne tout
mon cœur est à toi
tout à toi

Aslan's on the move

I can't encourage everyone enough to get out into different Christian contexts to see what God is birthing. What keeps surprising me is no matter how far I travel, and how vastly different the pockets of Christian gatherings I visit, the Spirit is saying the same thing. Spring is coming. The thaw is here. All creation is longing. Aslan's on the move.

We're a wild, flailing generation, aren't we? We've thrown denominational categories out because we can't be bothered to split theological hairs. We have hope because we've experienced hopelessness. We're ready to put it all on the line because we're more actuely aware of the transient nature of life spent on this globe. If we manage to stay in tune with Father's whispering, manage to respect the parents and grandparents that have tilled the ground before we were born, manage to recognize that to live is Christ and to die is gain, then we just might be the ones that get to experience what has only been dreamed about.

New Yak

Six of us head out from Port Credit tomorrow morning (at 7:00 a.m....egads) for New York, New York. It's been almost two years since I've been to New York, and I have very fond memories associated with the city. Our posse is part of the Youth With A Mission North American Cities Conference (YWAMNACC, I suppose, but who's counting?) which runs from Wednesday night to Saturday night.

After this one, I think I'll take a nice break from conference-land and enjoy real life for a bit. Anyone want me to pick them up something from the Big Apple?

Night Owl

There is a magical hour, it seems (and that hour gets earlier and earlier as I get older...), that the eyes start to sting and the mind starts to wander. Or wonder. My late night curiosities have lead me to the tangled web of myspace user profiles. I managed to get to the "add your dimensions" part of my own, test-myspace profile until realizing that I didn't really care enough to continue. I mean, what site asks you for your DIMENSIONS, for crying out loud? Why would this have any bearing on who might want to be my friend? Oh, she's 5'3"...I think I'll "add" her as a "contact" on my growing list of "e-friends". Poo to that, and poo to myspace.*

*this opinion does not mean to insult past, present or future myspace users. I myself was enticed to the friendly land of myspace by wonderful human beings. I think I'll just stick to blogspot for now. And ever.

Transfusion

THE VISION
Pete Greig

So this guy comes up to me and says, "What's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and words come out like this… The vision?

The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday. They wouldn't even notice. They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won. They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence. They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision ? The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best.

It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation. It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games. This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause. A million times a day its soldiers
choose to loose that they might one day win the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground. The whisper of history in the making. Foundations shaking. Revolutionaries dreaming once again. Mystery is scheming in whispers. Conspiracy is breathing… This is the sound of the underground.

And the army is discipl(in)ed.

Young people who beat their bodies into submission.

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms. The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them ?
Can hormones hold them back? Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them ?

And the generation prays
like a dying man with groans beyond talking, with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and with great barrow loads of laughter! Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive
inside.

On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide. Would they surrender their image or their popularity? They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,

they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.) Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus. Their words make demons scream in shopping centres. Don't you hear them coming? Herald the weirdos! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon. How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.

The roof, the roof, the roof is on...

Lo, it arriveth. Every Easter weekend for the past, erm, ten years or so has been spent either attending or thinking about attending Freshwind - TACF's annual youth conference. As geographical locale hasn't always worked out in my favour (England, India, Korea, England again), it's nice to be in town this year.

I haven't seen Deliriou5? play in concert since...2000 ACTS. Anyone remember 2000 ACTS? Yeah. Didn't think so.

Same same?

It's been plaguing me for weeks now, and I'm curious to see if anyone agrees with me: is there something about Mr. Andrew Gazaneo that is reminiscent of Gromit?

Trust.

Preach it, C.S. Lewis:

"There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

True North, Strong and Free

I live in a hotel.

This hotel specializes in immigrating families who are awaiting citizenship and can't rent apartments - the furnished room, phone connection, and monthly/weekly/daily payment flexibility are also helpful.

I walked into the elevator yesterday and a mom with her two small girls walked in with me. They looked to be from an Arabic country. While discussing the pink monkey that one of the girls was holding, she smiled at me and asked,

"Is Canada your new home too?"

I said that, no, it wasn't. It made me think of how many months the girl had been told, in her native language, that they were moving to a "new home". A country called "Canada". In her imagination she might have pictured igloos and snow and forests and it showed in her wide smile and big eyes.

Canada. Her new home. My old home. It's a good home.

Thaw

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
- Anne Bradstreet

Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.
- Doug Larson

If there comes a little thaw,
Still the air is chill and raw.
Here and there a patch of snow,
Dirtier than the ground below,
Dribbles down a marshy flood;
Ankle-deep you stick in mud
In the meadows while you sing,
"This is Spring."
- Christopher Pearce Cranch

Detox

Someone was recently explaining the intricacies of colon cleansing (whilst pointing out that Brits pronounce it "cole-on") to me, over dinner, but thankfully before the food arrived at the table.

Today's theme has been detox. Doctors will warn that the detox process comes with unpleasant side effects. Some of which include:

• A headache
• More, or smellier, sweat
• Fatigue
• Feeling unusual emotions
• A dry mouth
• Spots, pimples or rashes
• Constipation

The caution comes with a promise that "these side effects show you are getting rid of toxins" but, really, when you're stinky, sweaty, emotional, dehydrated, ugly, constipated and suffering from a headache do you really have the time and/or patience to think, "Good thing I'm getting rid of harmful toxins..." Instead, don't we just long for the toxins to stay; to avoid the obnoxious withdraw symptoms?

So here's the question: when we decide to break bad habits, start living counter to what we've been used to, and making decisions that benefit us long term instead of diving into short term pleasures, why do we expect the result instantly? In one article, detox was defined as giving "a sense of going back to basics", or back to the way nature intended...and yet, our bodies revolt.

Why does simplicity sometimes seem so foreign?