rainy days and pens and paper

I am

standing here in my disaster zone

of a bedroom

reading Coleridge out loud

to the mirror on my wall

I was

packing up novels, anthologies, Bibles

into wine and vodka boxes salvaged from the Co-op liquor store

boxing up academia

as if it were the remains of

a frat party

or

a pretentious hors d'oeuvres-laden meeting of the undergrad minds

my Harbrace, my Nortons, my Gilbert 'n Gubar

are now just the makings of some wicked upper body strength

and an increasingly defeatist attitude toward relocation

my precious findings from the poetry bookshop in Hay-on-Wye

are now just decisions to be made

(can I really not take it with me?)

but this Golden Book of Coleridge that I'm holding is so small

and delicate as a robin's egg

I can't not take it everywhere

(I hear my Kantian self whisper chidingly,

"my dear, this is your duty")

so as I look in the mirror now

I see myself not dimly

but in future tense

laden with tattoos inspired by Ondaatje, family, and the Romantics I count as bedfellows

reading odes to solitude on the Mount of Olives overlooking the Temple Mount

recalling generations of others' forebears-

wanting anything but solitude-

offering up precious sacrifices in hopes of reconciling

with a god who would know them

I see myself recalling Wordsworth on the terrace

overlooking Gai-Hinnom

a terrace mottled with countless gunshot wounds

an everyday monument to the six-day sacrifice

of a breathing ancestry finding its footing again

rebuilding a future from the rubble of history

binding bricks with the bloody mortar of controversy

and I hope I will not have cause to wonder then

whither the visionary gleam has fled

but why is the rum gone?

Good day, my lovelies.

Of late I have been rather numbed to reality; my lack of interaction with friends and lack of interest in the tasks I am forced to complete has rendered me rather apathetic to myself. But the other day I experienced a little bit of much-needed ecstasy in the shower- wait, why would you think that? go wash your brain. I mean ecstasy in the sense of clarity achieved by viewing oneself from beyond the confines of subjective embodiment, obviously.

I felt like I had been transported back to the Ben Hinnom valley and was looking up at the walls of the old city of Jerusalem, waiting for the no. 124 bus with a crowd of Palestinians. I could simultaneously almost hear Daniel Rossing's calming voice speaking about Israeli identity. The warm water falling on me became the dry desert heat of Wadi Rum. The nauseating cacophony of my pointless anxious thoughts transmuted into the steady hum of my exuberant imagination. My hunger for my typical morning bagel with cream cheese became redirected towards cucumber and tomato and goat cheese and something, anything, with olive oil.

It's always surprising when I find myself in a state of holistic remembrance; it always catches me off guard. It's like the triggers are hidden beneath layers of meaning and preoccupation and self-analysis, and the more you try to locate them, the more they evade you, until you can only hit one entirely by accident. The only consistent trigger for me is the smell of thyme, all the others are basically one-use, untraceable, disposable cell phones. Excuse me, that's my life calling and other 90s whatnots. But for actual.

Every time I wake up to the reality of my trip-self, that more contented, more alive, more compassionate, more intelligent, more fulfilled me, I have to do something to make her happy. I have to do something that will make the girl who sat in the back of a rusted old Toyota and smiled like a dementoid at the red sand and monoliths of Wadi Rum feel proud to know me, or at least not ashamed to have made my acquaintance. I have to crack open my copy of To Jerusalem and Back or cue up one of my Mount Herzl lectures or peruse a Musalaha update to realign me with the self I hope to consistently be some day. And I have to start living as though I enjoy the people who surround me, because in truth I absolutely do. I have to do something to remind me that life can be full and beautiful here, too. Something to make me refrain from apathy and apostasy. To see the glass as full to the brim.

If I'm not surrounded by Rum, I can still buy some Fuller's London Porter to tide me over.

what's in your crock pot?

I am exhausted; sleep has been playing its coy, evasive game with me for the past week, and I don't find it very sexy. Nobody likes a tease.

Because I feel so monumentally useless in my exhaustion, I thought I would attempt to write something important that would realign me with myself and make me feel good for something. And I realize that while I've spent a good deal of time writing about my overseas adventure and how much I achingly miss what I experienced during it, I haven't done a good job of explaining how I intend to change my life because of it. I've shared my new dream with a few people, in a rather haphazard manner, but I would like to state it for the record. I have a history of losing faith in my ability to achieve dreams, but I don't want that to happen this time. So by stating this for the record, my hope is that my faithful readers will hold me accountable to my dreams. Imagine that this is a wedding between me and my future, and you are the best man or maid of honour. Help me keep my promise.

When we were in Jerusalem, we were greatly privileged to hear from a wide variety scholars, pastors, and activists. I know that we were all very grateful for the opportunity to appraise prevalent Israeli issues from so many perspectives, but it was an intensely confusing time for all of us. For example, one night we could hear a passionate lecture from a Zionist and think that Zionism made perfect, righteous sense, and then the next day we could hear testimony from a Palestinian Christian about how the IDF had killed his non-combatant family and stolen his livelihood. I felt stuck in ideological limbo for most of the time I was there. But when we welcomed Salim J. Munayer into our classroom at Tantur, my mind found a little peace. Salim is the founder and director of Musalaha, an organization whose sole purpose is to bring about reconciliation between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. I don't need to explain everything about it here; if you like, you can visit their website or read their Wikipedia page. I don't think it's possible to visit Israel and the Palestinian Territories without feeling an overwhelming sense of your own helplessness and therefore the region's hopelessness. But suffice it to say that in hearing from Salim, I finally felt that there was hope for humanity's survival in that hotbed of hateful controversy.

I felt broadly inspired when I heard Salim speak, but I didn't instantly know what I know now about my calling. As with most of my dreams, the dream to work for Musalaha developed slowly on a near-subconscious level; "slow-burnin' love" is what I have come to call it. It's the same process I went through in September: a clear catalyst starts the process of deep internal realignment, and after a brief gestation period, a new life concept is born in my mind that re-lights the fire under my soul. Add to this dream crock pot a few divine brain interventions, and you've got yourself a life calling.

So what is it that I hear calling? A new way to promote healing in a broken land that brings together my soul's yearning for reconciliation, my heart's desire to be back in that land, and my musical gifts that I couldn't bear to let go to waste. I have never been so excited for anything, and I have never felt more like myself in this excitement. But waiting is hard. Being uncertain of when this dream will begin to influence my reality is almost physically painful for me at this stage. But if I can earn enough money in this next year, then grad school in Jerusalem will be within reach. And once I have my degree in Middle Eastern Cultures and Religions, then I can begin to work the way I want to work. But I'm not just excited for grad school because it is a means to an end; I have never been so excited to just learn and study and fully devote myself to an academic task, because my learning will have direct implications for my life's work. Anyway. What's this life's work I keep teasing about? Creating an Israeli-Palestinian children's choir.

I plan to start with a choir camp that branches off from Musalaha's already existent children's camp program, and then to build that short-term choir into a long-term project. The culmination of the dream would be a choral festival that brings youth from all over the world and unites them in song. If you've never experienced anything like that firsthand, the idea seems cheesy and naive and romantic. Let me assure you that in reality it is not. Music is a gift; it is a glimpse into the beauty and power of God. And therefore, music has the power to reconcile people through their differences, the power to bring joy, the power to open the heart so that it truly feels and moves in ways it never did before. Reconciliation, joy, love...these are the roots of hope. And hope is obviously a particular obsession of mine.

So there you have it. I hope it doesn't sound like my crock pot is full of crack.

essay on whoa, man

I'm taking disciplinary action against myself.

I've realized in the past couple of years that as much as I love spontaneity in my life, I can't enjoy it unless my days are otherwise regimented. Seeing as I am sparsely employed these days, slothfulness is my natural go-to mode of being during the stretches of nothingness that seem to never end, and apparently sitting on the couch indulging my new addiction to Privileged is not the way to create a regimen. I'm becoming more and more useless with every day I mentally tick off my mental calendar. However, as I was recently chastised for not keeping up with my blog since returning home in June, and because I openly admit to having an over-active superego and therefore choreograph my life in such a way that will paint pretty pictures of me in other people's minds, I feel compelled to throw myself back into the writing ring and call it productivity. I will attempt to prove myself as the 21st century female reincarnation of Alexander Pope- I will write out of discipline and a sense of duty to my so-called art.

(This is the part where you nod your head encouragingly at the computer screen as though you believe me capable of such simultaneous change and consistency.)

Now, on to the task at hand.

On Sunday I attended a lovely little reunion with some fellow travellers from SSHL. It's amazing to me how bonds forged in a peculiar context can survive being transplanted into everyday life; what a welcome gift it was to again feel the ease of being with these women whom I came to think of as my little band of wandering sisters and adoptive mothers. What a surprise to realize that we did not need the excitement and constant activity of an overseas adventure going on around us in order to make us a community. What a work of the Spirit: awakening the heart from its ancient sleep (thank you, Hildie of Bingen).

Being awakened to the fact that there were other people on that trip with me made it easier for me to stop procrastinating introspection. On Monday, I took Angelo for a walk in Edworthy Park, where we used to go all the time in the first few years that we lived here. It was cold and overcast, just the way I like it. On days like that, the warm green of the leaves makes the most beautiful contrast with the grey and forbidding sky; everything from a building to a leaf looks delicate and fixed in place, which makes the wind a near-visible apparition. Days like that turn my city into something I can love, an opponent with whom I have been reconciled. Musalaha is always something to embrace, even in such pedestrian circumstances.

And this particular embrace led me down a path flooded with memories. I think about the past constantly, but I invariably become fixated on certain elements and thus ignore the bulk of my memory's contents. But on Monday afternoon I was taken right back to the beginning of my life in Calgary, when I would walk through the aspens on a narrow, windy trail that I wished no one had ever taken before. I would try to get lost. I would let my confused expectations play around with my imagination to see what kind of world they would create. I would sit on a bench overlooking the river and the railway and the stalagmites of downtown and fancy myself to be a daintily-clad Jane Austen heroine standing on the edge of a windy promontory. I would stare at the city until I found something I liked about it, then emotionally flagellate myself for betraying my allegiance to my home town. Often when I recall those transitional teenage years, I get lost in a fog that makes it seem as though I never really felt or saw or understood anything in those days. But I looked through my own innocent eyes again during that pensive walk, and I knew myself again with clarity.

Here's hoping that the clarity continues; after all, I wouldn't want y'all to resort to books for daily reading material.

mastering the art of french loneliness

I spent the entire day entirely alone. I didn't want to, which made it less enjoyable than it would have been had I planned it based on one of my not uncommon introvert time cravings. However, I think I made the best of it. I did laundry, vacuumed, cut fresh herbs from the garden to put in my lunchtime soup, read Herzl in the sun, played some Bach and Brahms and Rimsky-Korsakov, and watched Julie & Julia (on an actual tv, I should add, not on my laptop- extra points!).

These days, I'm proud of myself when I do anything that isn't lamely habitual. I'm in the process of preparing for a new direction, but I have no idea how long I will be kept in this holding area, this prep school of the soul and bank account. I'm not very adept at waiting, and absolutely inept at waiting patiently, so it's a miracle when I can do more than lull myself into a state of near-unconsciousness on a day like today that is all about patience.

Maybe this miracle is due to the fantastic few hours I spent with a semi-estranged friend on Thursday. I think that time really helped me come face to face with all the issues I've been suppressing since coming back. I talk about the Middle East and my new direction every chance I get, I'm well aware of that. But rarely do I get to talk right down to the core of the trip, to those ideas and inklings and experiences and observations that burrowed under my skin like happy, soulful parasites. Smoking white grape shisha and making hummus and re-opening an old connection made my hidden heart feel real again, and I was grateful for that today as I acknowledged the new stage of separation that I am beginning. It is the stage during which the experience begins to feel like a dream in the way its big images fade away and all that is left is the emotional residue of its many small moments. Memories now become memories of memories, cousins of memories, but their fragmentation allows them access to the numerous tiny recesses of my mind that manage to touch every thought eventually. Then the memories are like cousins not in the Western sense of the word (don't marry these unless you're royalty, but cultivate awkward, ill-defined friendships with them instead), but in its Middle Eastern sense (these can be found anywhere, in anyone you grow to love in any way).

And so that is how I explain why I cried today while watching what critics called "the feel-good movie of the year". Everything, absolutely everything, comes back to my desperate yearning for that something I cannot possibly name in that place that bears so many names.

I would fire me if I were you

Over a month ago, as I sat on a rock that formed the foundation of a tiny Franciscan church and looked out over the waters of the Galilee, I shed some heavy tears at the realization that life back in Canada would most likely choke the life out of me. I wanted to think the best of my home country and my community, but I had an inkling that the extreme presence of mind, compassion, and determination that I was experiencing in the Holy Land would come under fire once I re-entered the Land of the Meaningless.

It turns out I was right.

The difficulty I face now is in living in a world that is full-blown obsessed with the inconsequential. It's not that I'm now so much wiser and holier than this kind of world and can no longer understand why other people participate in it; it's that I still find myself caught up in it, still find myself waging petty battles within it, and still can't escape it no matter how hard I try. I thought that imagining where I was and who I was in those places would ease the pain of these ridiculous workplace arguments and pointless relational struggles. I thought that organizing my mental notes on age-old world conflicts would realign my priorities. I thought that reading Potok and Herzl would restore my peace of mind and eradicate my social anxiety.

It turns out I was wrong.

I'm sick of worrying, and yet I worry.

I'm sick of arguing, and yet I argue.

I am frustrated with frustration,

confused by confusion,

and finally- disarmingly-

disheartened by hope.

The hope remains, but it has found some new opponents. The dreams have yet to die, but pettiness threatens to consume them; it scratches at the door to be let in.

But now I see raindrops on my screened window and hear the wind howl in the strategically planted trees of my neighbourhood. I feel the wilderness within my heart and the borders within my brain. I know the ease with which I could step into the current of the inconsequential and be swept along by the momentum of self-satisfied dissatisfaction. We are called to be in the world but not of it; we cannot give ourselves over to a thing which would consume us. But I cannot give myself over fully to a hope that would take away my 'livelihood', nor can I surrender myself to a lifestyle that would make a mockery of my dreams. Needless to say, I've become a shit employee.

Oh, the tension: theoretically satisfying, but practically flummoxing, and no Magic Bag in the world will loosen it.

regardless repetition

Those of you who like to fb-stalk me will already be familiar with this, but since I've been so delinquent in my bloggenation since returning home, I thought I would recycle this little tidbit for my followers' delight. The following is a little article I was asked to write for the Ambrose email update/website regarding SSHL 2010. Enjoy!




I have already written quite a bit about my experiences on this year's Summer School in the Holy Land travel venture, but I have the feeling that it will be a long time before I run out of material to process on the page. As far as my internal clock is concerned, one week in Syria, another in Jordan, and three more in Israel might as well have comprised a complete and separate lifetime; the me who explored Petra and Damascus, swam in the Sea of Galilee, and wandered the crowded streets of Old Jerusalem might as well be a different me than the one who walked the stage at Ambrose's graduation ceremony just days before departing down the ancient paths. I am still attempting to figure out how such a seeming vastness of time could be contained within five short weeks and why such an immensity of change should occur within one tall girl, but I suppose I could at least start by saying that this was not your average travel tour.

Charles Nienkirchen, the man behind the Down Ancient Paths travel study program, planned our itinerary very intentionally. His goal was not only to have us see the famous holy sites and walk where Jesus walked; he wanted us to understand the timeline of Christian presence in the greater Holy Land, the purpose behind pilgrimage, the role of the land in the identity of its inhabitants, the essence of desert spirituality and monasticism, the ongoing conflicts between and within the three monotheistic religions, and the controversies that date back centuries before the formation of the State of Israel. So, we followed guides from every cultural and religious background imaginable. We attempted—somewhat unsuccessfully—to dialogue with the mufti of Damascus and other Islamic scholars. We heard about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from all the major perspectives, as well as some minor ones. We learned about Islamic, Jewish, and Christian theology and history both in the classroom and out in the land. Despite our misgivings and physical setbacks, we embarked on long, sweaty treks to visit monasteries that did not want to be visited. We frequently crossed from Jerusalem into Bethlehem by way of the checkpoint in the looming security wall that keeps the West Bank out of Israel, and (supposedly) vice versa. We did all these things so that we would see that the place we call the Holy Land is as rife with the unholiness of conflict, double standards, and hypocrisy as it is infused with history and beauty.

On a few occasions during the five weeks, our scraggly band of sojourners got together for the sole purpose of sharing our impressions from the journey. Although we were a diverse group whose members ranged from ages nineteen to seventy-nine, our common ground was surprisingly expansive. We were able to discuss difficult things with one another even though we had been perfect strangers when we gathered at the airport. I think this is because we were faced with both extremely painful and truly awe-inspiring things within a context that necessitated our holistic reliance on each other. So we could sip Bedouin tea in the Jordanian desert, watch the moon rise over the Galilee, and look out over Bethlehem from our classroom at Tantur Ecumenical Institute while safely sharing our very personal epiphanies with one another.

Summer School in the Holy Land was a watershed in both my walk of faith and my academic journey; my brain is still buzzing as I attempt to apply my transformative realizations to my worldview, my plans for the future, and my understanding of God, and so I am sure that the trip is not anywhere near finished for me. Although technically and simplistically speaking I went to the Middle East to explore the ancient roots of modern religions, I would not use any of those words to sum up what I have taken away from the trip. Instead I would say that Summer School in the Holy Land has made me desire to continue experiencing the pangs of the heart as it births new loves, the desperation of the soul as it thirsts for justice, and the eagerness of the mind to dispel its ignorance. And I will remain thankful that this venture re-fueled me in my search to find God in every land, every people group, and every controversy, and to see him more clearly when I do.