Hi there. This is my old blog, and not "current", but you're welcome to come over and check out the current one--same guy, different stuff. Avast! :)

Gone, originally uploaded by er1danus.

These shoes have had it--many kilometres and a couple of soles later.

There comes a time for everything, and this blog's time has come. Although the pilgrimage is far from over, this blog is over. The journey will continue at http://anothercountry.blogspot.com . Be invited to lurk or comment.

What began as a walk has become a daily bicycle ride, both ways. I have found it more useful to comment on what I see through the Poem a Day exercise, which began as a short discipline, and which threatens to be be long lasting in its own way. Is poetry writing addictive, I wonder?

I always try to see through the eyes of the spirit, whatever meets my vision, or at least convey thusly what I've seen. Sometimes it works better than at other times.

The journey, with its erratic commentator, continues...

The Rainbow of the Affirming Church

The Rainbow of the Affirming Church, originally uploaded by er1danus.

My "home" church (it's a long story) is now officially an Affirming Congregation of the United Church of Canada. We have gone through an education period and voted to join Affirm United, and are officially a congregation that provides welcome for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation.

Today was the Affirming service. The rainbow is the symbol of welcoming and acceptance.

A beautiful story...

Stub, originally uploaded by er1danus.

Eight hours of light, come to an end...

Hunger. For the past several days, I have been hungry. Hunger has hung around, bugging me through the day, toward bedtime, and when I wake up in the morning (though this last is a time when Everybody's hungry).

It's not the desperate hunger of someone in malnutrition, in famine, in true Want. Nothing like the hunger that precedes death, when the body has consumed all it can of itself, and goes into a coma.

It's a hunger that I suspect stems from my body having realized that meat, which I've consumed all my life, isn't forthcoming. It's a hunger of broken habit yearning to return to the habitual. It's a desire for the concentrated, heavy, rich protein that meat offers. For the return to the easy protein/carbohydrate ratio.

It's not the taste of meat that is the object of desire, but the sheer weight of it, as though my stomach were a pack of wolves wondering where the caribou have gone, when's the next kill, the snarling tearing gorging feast and sated, bloated, happy afterglow. My teeth are the scouts coming back to the pack empty. So my stomach besieges my mind, sensing that my mind has something to do with the deprivation, since my senses have oft indicated the presence of edible meat around. My mind, like a slippery Jean Chretien or Dalton McGuinty (Canadian politicians known for their shrugging off of promises, for my American readers), makes assurances and names dates (like, Good Friday, which is April 6--a bit less than three weeks, but who's counting?) and urges stomach to imagine the post-Lenten meal. All will be well. Yeah, right...

Today, Joyce and I went out for dim sum after church. For the first time, I noticed how hard it can be to eat vegetables only. In a visceral way. It was shrimp this and chicken that, pork and beef. We settled on deep fried tofu and Singapore rice noodles (Joyce got the meat--I won't eat meat, but neither will I eschew something cooked with meat. That's another stage altogether.), and it was fine.

But.

OK, you've got my attention. I knew I needed God before, and now I know it doubly, OK? Why am I doing this? Attention. What do I need to learn here? That many, many people are more deeply hungry than I am? That my hunger is relatively trivial? Granted, got that, OK, 10-4. Or maybe, it's something I have slowly and now much more quickly realized about the people at my workplace, the haunted ones, the shivering ones, the fearful ones, the fragile ones--a "good life", a life abundant, is next to impossible if your attention is hemoraged away in a never-ending struggle just to meet your basic needs day in, day out.

That's the true hunger, and it is everywhere. Our government expects our clients to upgrade their literacy skills and get a job. OK, but what if our clients come in after being beaten up the night before? Or if they come in unable to make the rent on their crappy apartment and are faced with a move to a cheaper hotel suite where there is major alcohol and pressure to drink and do drugs on the premises? Or if their abusive ex-boyfriend has found out where they're living and the women hear rumours that he's going to "come get" them soon? Or if they haven't eaten anything but Kraft Dinner (Mac & Cheese) for a week, and having skipped a few meals in the bargain?

The Hunger is for Freedom from the situations that these words describe. The Abundant Life promised is only possible within this freedom, whether that freedom is gained through one's needs being met, or through an individual's disciplined, uncoerced choice to accept a certain amount of deprivation. Most of us are not especially disciplined, uncoerced people, particularly those facing violence, food insecurity, housing challenges, etc etc. Our government tacitly expects these folks to be more disciplined, more careful, than the rest of us who don't need that level of intentionality to simply live. Our government is wrong. The mentality of Workfare (forced labour for welfare benefits) is wrong. It exacts another deprivation: personal dignity.

The Cry of the Poor (Dom Helder Camara) is the anguished wail of a life being lived on a wizened, empty stomach. With no food in sight.

Hunger.

"Scott Carey: I was continuing to shrink, to become... what? The infinitesimal? What was I? Still a human being? Or was I the man of the future? If there were other bursts of radiation, other clouds drifting across seas and continents, would other beings follow me into this vast new world? So close - the infinitesimal and the infinite. But suddenly, I knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet - like the closing of a gigantic circle. I looked up, as if somehow I would grasp the heavens. The universe, worlds beyond number, God's silver tapestry spread across the night. And in that moment, I knew the answer to the riddle of the infinite. I had thought in terms of man's own limited dimension. I had presumed upon nature. That existence begins and ends in man's conception, not nature's. And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away. And in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God, there is no zero. I still exist!" --closing narration soliloquy of character Scott Carey (Grant Williams, 1930-1985) from the film The Incredible Shrinking Man