orna. mental.

The past few days have encouraged me to buck up, cheer up, get the eff ohhhverrrr mehsulf…  and enjoy Christmas. Since, my heart has been full of yulecheer inspired by the christchild. It all started when I saw this (not the christchild, but young… so it pointed in the right direction.)

And it was uphill from there. Look, I have friends!

emily, elisha, sara, me – sunday afternoon after church lunch. reminiscent of fun 8 year old times. and can i make an observation? that hat looks cool from the angle i see it at when i look in a mirror but hello… here it looks like a tea cozy on my head. how come no one told me???

evo & anne. regifting a treasure (i am putting this photo forward as front page ysm web content. i think it could be a contender, no?)

And some of my friends have babies (see… more evidence that my heart is compassing towards the christchild) – these specific babes have perfect ears and phenomenal photography skills.

elisha’s little jake.

maryellen’s talented joshua.

I think what pushed me over the top this weekend was setting up the tree. (Duh.) It was pulling all of Jo’s ornaments that I have collected over the years that really did it. Thanks for being so generous, talented and kind Johannah! Your gifts are treasured and I’m sure that this will amount to an extra jewel on your crown (>?!) one day because truly, opening that box to decorate the tree turned me from a green grinch.. . back into myself.

And last but not least. Last night was our neighbourhood youth “Winter” party. Let’s be honest, if playing a wildly physical game of Twister with a bunch of lovely youth (with highly conservative parents!) from a variety of different faith backgrounds doesn’t scream “yulecheer! christmas! christchild!” – I’m not sure what does.

i don’t know where to start

I would like to go back. I had joy for the first day of Christmas in the organization that I call home and now that the accusations fly, the disharmony around who gets what toy, the burden of the hurts of this season being felt all too strongly in the community… I wish I was back on the beach.

We didn’t talk for the first half. Just sat and watched as the waves pounded for four days… and then there was a little of this, that and surfing.

In a nutshell (a hollow empty one that was smashed to pieces by a christmas spiritless nutcracker… jk) Costa Rica was really great. The laid back vibe of the surfing villages, the epic waterfall hike that could have ended in death if my life was a tragedy (but I choose to think of it as a comedy so hopefully mine will end with a big wedding with lots of dancing) (oh, and the death could have come by giant poisonous spider the size of my entire open hand, moving at the speed of light in the middle of giant costa rican hill, 2 hours into the middle of nowhere)…. it was all great. Lots of wildlife… this raccoon was tenacious, had a limp and insisted on eating any food that we were eating. Kind of like a pet dog.

The stand off ended when it had backed us into the little house, it limped up a chair and onto our table (!) and then burned its little face on a candle. We won! And I don’t really think of raccoons as ‘wildlife’ but there was a lot of other real wildlife, including a creature that looked like a combination of a pig/rat with the legs of a deer (but shorter). When there’s more time, I’ll share all the pictures.

I’m off to be a Christmas Elf but instead of carols ringing in my hollow little mind, all I hear are pounding waves. Sigh.

i am setting

Every Tuesday for a couple of hours I volunteer at a local mission called the Warehouse teaching literacy to adults who have found home in several rooming houses in a nearby alley. I initially joined Tim in his volunteering pursuit over a year ago in order to consolidate some of our time. Some Tuesdays are a bit of a slog, I can’t lie (although I’m sure I could if I tried hard enough… or even a little.) Sometimes though, if the stars align just so, Tuesday afternoons can be a gift.

Last week, after working through the minutiae of sentence structure with Sharon, I moved to sit with Howard and we spent some time working through Psalm 23. He would stop and stutter at some of the bigger words but we patiently plodded through it several times. He was getting ready to read it in the Sunday church service and he asserted that it was extremely important for him to know how to pronounce all the words. “Now what’s this?” He asked me as we neared the end of the Psalm. He was pointing at the word ‘presence.’ “Why does it not have an S on the end of it?”

We pulled out a sheet of loose leaf paper and proceeded on a half hour journey that was decidedly more difficult than it should have been. Howard has a big laugh, a misplaced sense of wit and is never short on words. He likes to talk. Howard’s favourite phrase is “Let’s say…” As in…

“Let’s say, I get you a gift.”

“Okay…”

“One gift is spelled like this: P R E S E N T.”

“Correct.”

“Now let’s say it’s two or three gifts, say I get you flowers and chocolate (he smirks)… it’s P R E S E N T S.” In his scrawling pencil scratch, he lays the word down. He is very proud. My turn.

“Right Howard. Now ‘let’s say’ that I was taking attendance. I was reading off a list of names and we get to you. You would say…

“…I’m here.”

“No, try again.” He raises his hand expectantly, as if he’s a ten year old in school. “Howard?”

“Right here!”

“No. (sigh) How about the word… Present?”

“Ahhhh.”

“So now let’s take that word – present-”

“- Right, a gift. One gift.”

“No, not a gift… being present.”

I tried it from several angles. After 10 more minutes Howard is beside himself in frustration. So much so that he pulls out the “I’m not going to yell at you because you’re a lady” comment which was awesome in it’s own right. And finally…

“Okay, how about this. I am sitting with you – Howard. I am present with Howard. Howard, whose presence are you sitting in?”

“Yours?”

And this conversation repeated itself around gifts, the use of the plural, and the concept of “presence.” After the light bulb had finally clicked, Howard pulled the paper and the Bible towards himself and scratched out “I am setting in God’s presence.” (meaning sitting.)

And it became liturgical as it was written out several more times – I am setting in God’s presence. Howard’s demeanor calmed and his frustration smoothed and the sheer volume of his voice started to lower.

After assuring and promising Howard that I would come and listen to him read Psalm 23 on the Sunday he was set to read it, I left with his repetitive, constant voice in my ear – I am sitting in God’s presence. Truly one of the best bible studies of my year to date.