Go together like a horse and carriage...

Love and marriage. Children. More children. It's all quite nice to say, think, even feel that we want these things but I'm reminded of a scene in Lost In Translation that made me think differently for the first time:


BOB: ...it gets complicated when you have kids... that changes everything.

CHARLOTTE: That's too scary.

BOB: When they're born it's like Vietnam. It's terrifying.

CHARLOTTE: No one ever tells you that...

Some questions of my own have been surfacing since getting a front row seat to my friend's marital/parental life, which include:

• How do you take a shower with a two-year-old, awake, running through the house?
• What does discipline look like?
• Who does the laundry, the dishes, the bills?
• Do you ever have a spare moment to yourself for sixteen, eighteen, twenty (or, in my parents' case: thirty) years, as your children grow up and, eventually, move out?

Or, forget children for a moment, and let's focus on marriage alone. I mean, you're adding another human being to your life. To everything you do. As Penelope Cruz' character, Sophia, in Vanilla Sky says, "Holy God. This is going to change my life in a zillion different ways. I must be nuts."

Or, in The Way of the World by Congreve (thanks, Nik):

My dear liberty, shall I leave thee?  My faithful solitude,
my darling contemplation, must I bid you then adieu?  Ay-h,
adieu.  My morning thoughts, agreeable wakings, indolent
slumbers, all ye DOUCEURS, ye SOMMEILS DU MATIN, adieu.
I can't do't, 'tis more than impossible.

Perhaps it is because I didn't jump the gun at twenty, and get married when emotions and hormones were high and logic was at an all-time low (not with everyone, but definitely the case with me), that my logic now outweighs my emotions and hormones? Why does it suddenly irk me to think that I might reach a stage in my life where I can not shrink away to read in a corner, or go see a film, or travel the world; that to do so would be irresponsible?

Thoughts, anyone?

That's my King. Do you know Him?

Yoinked from Andrew Gazaneo's blog is THIS tasty little bit of streaming audio. It's like old-school freestyling...

Step of Faith

Horses are much stronger than me...

I'm staying at my friend, Shay's, house in London, England. Shay and her husband, Duncan, have a two-year-old named Jayda. I, therefore, have been enrolled in a crash-course in Life With A Toddler 101.

Jayda has a non-stop vocabulary (first born girls...we're speaking from day one), so I've taught her to say "evidently". She says it now. We're working on "superfluous". For the most part, she toddles around the house, engaging anyone and anything she finds in conversation. Mum, dad, me, a crayon, her Paddington bear doll. For a Canadian's ears, her developing British accent provides extra entertainment.

She has four books, in a series, which are each about a different farm animal: horse, cow, chicken and sheep. Disconcertingly enough, the chicken book states, and I quote:

Chickens are much smaller than me...
They say "cock-a-doodle-do!"
I can say that too, can you?

Which is erroneously leading the child to believe that chickens, and not roosters, say cock-a-doodle-do. And, as I have been recently researching, this would be a grave mistake to make in many fundamental evangelical denominations of the West. What would Paul have to say about chickens crowing, hm? The things they teach kids these days...

I must now go and answer the pressing question, "What's doggie doing?"

'Til Kingdom Come

Two posts in the same day. This one was worth posting. Because my entire afternoon stopped when I heard the lyrics. If this isn't a worship song, I don't know what one is. Gazaneo, if you're reading this, let's start using this at Central.

Steal my heart and hold my tongue.
I feel my time, my time has come.
Let me in, unlock the door.
I've never felt this way before.

The wheels just keep on turning,
The drummer begins to drum,
I don't know which way I'm going,
I don't know which way I've come.

Hold my hand inside your hands,
I need someone who understands.
I need someone, someone who hears,
For you, I've waited all these years.

For you, I'd wait 'til kingdom come.
Until my day, my day is done.
And say you'll come, and set me free,
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me.

In your tears and in your blood,
In your fire and in your flood,
I hear you laugh, I heard you say,
"I wouldn't change a single thing."

The wheels just keep on turning,
The drummers begin to drum,
I don't know which way I'm going,
I don't know what I've become.

For you, I'd wait 'til kingdom come,
Until my days, my days are done.
Say you'll come and set me free,
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me.
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me.

Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me.

- Coldplay

Disturb us, Lord...

The latest nugget of wisdom comes from Sir Francis Drake, via Jeremy Sizemore, in the form of a prayer. It's been haunting me for three days now.

Disturb us, Lord, when We are too well pleased with ourselves, When our dreams have come true Because we have dreamed too little, When we arrived safely Because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord, when With the abundance of things we possess We have lost our thirst For the waters of life; Having fallen in love with life, We have ceased to dream of eternity And in our efforts to build a new earth, We have allowed our vision Of the new Heaven to dim. Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, To venture on wider seas Where storms will show your mastery; Where losing sight of land, We shall find the stars. We ask You to push back The horizons of our hopes; And to push into the future In strength, courage, hope, and love.

attributed - Sir Francis Drake - 1577

Puppy dogs' tails and everything nice.

Is it just me, or is all this stuff that the Eldredges write about in Wild At Heart (for guys) and Captivating (for girls) totally transformational?

Now, I'm not one to jump on the latest Christian-book-bandwagon (The Prayer of Jabez, The Purpose-Driven Life, and Your Best Life Now being three that come to mind when I think of books that I'd rather not promote...at least, en masse), and I really rather prefer the writing style of Salinger to almost anything sold in a Christian bookstore...but these two books on the sexes seem to be irking, inspiring, reaching, and insulting me in a way that Salinger never has. I was in tears at one point, have been wincing often, smiling wryly when not, and even had the visceral desire to shut Captivating and whip it across the room at one point this afternoon. Why?

Why do these books get under my skin? Aren't they formulaic? Aren't they written in dumbed down narrative? Don't they have cliché, soft-focus covers? They just reiterate what we all know anyway, about guys and girls, don't they? Don't they?

Why is it only now, at the age of 25, that I know what I should and shouldn't be looking for in a romantic relationship? Why is it only now, after several "dramacides", that I understand how they have left me feeling barren? Why is it only now, after years of Christianity, that I feel the wooing pursuit of God's love for me?

I guess the questions are deeper than I even know myself. Or, as John and Staci Eldredge would say, the Questions. "Do I have what it takes?" asks the little boy. "Am I lovely?" asks the little girl. It's so simple. And makes too much sense.