One for the money, two for the show

Less than a week left in our sunny little apartment overlooking West Boulevard. Today and yesterday the sky has been blue and mostly clear–there’s some annoying cirrus occluding the sun right now–so we’ve been able to see the ocean and what I’m pretty sure is Valdez and Vancouver Island. So maybe I’ve been staring at my destiny as long as we’ve lived here? I jest, but.

We’re off to the Cariboo for another summer and then down to Nanaimo in September, hoping that Aaron will get in to his program now that it’s T-5 days till our move. We’re committed to moving regardless, and are pretty excited about it: cheaper housing, cheaper schooling, different opportunities, another town to explore, new coffee shops and pubs and graveyards to visit. And, another Backroads Mapbook to purchase.

I keep wishing to feel an overwhelming sense of calm and certainty about my future, but it never comes. Ever since I decided that I didn’t want to pursue a PhD after Regent, I’ve been oscillating between singing “School’s Out For Summer,” and “I’m a loser, and I’m not what I appear to be.” Just to recap if you’ve missed it, I’m not entirely sure that I’ll finish at Regent! Which has me singing all sorts of songs, as you can imaging. One them being Nicki Minaj’s “Super Bass,” which has nothing to do with anything.

The real reason for this blog update is to avoid my multiple papers that are due in three days, so if anyone wants to read a technical exegesis paper on Psalm 2 or a comparative essay on The Brothers K and The Sparrow and how non-consensual sex affects people’s faith journeys, well, ask me in three days.

Also, I hope to blog more this summer, so to aid with that if you have something you’d like my pseudo-educated opinion on, let me know and I’ll write about it.

As an aside, overeating never feels good. I ate so much good food this weekend on account of the family being in town … I could barely walk last night, and this morning, I was sure that my stomach had visibly expanded to accomodate all the dressing I ate. It was great to see everyone though, and snuggle and bounce Noah, who is growing so fast! My first little nephew.

First came a strong wind, ripping off rooftops

Last time we spoke I was being a bit abstruse not coming out and saying that Aaron and I were considering a change of plan. Today I am pleased to inform you that the new plan has been inaugurated, the Commitment High Five (CHF) has sealed it, and we’re moving to Nanaimo this fall. Old news for some, but still good news for us.

I need some time away from all of this (gesturing towards the exegetical books and piles of papers) to really decide what the hell I’m doing with my life. Maybe after 6 years of biblical scholarship I should just suck it up and finish like a good Christian, but, I alluded to why I’m hesitating to do so in my last post. New quest: toggle active. My boo’s applied to do Automotive training, and I did end up applying for fisheries. Maybe nothing will come of my application, but it’s high time we start working on Aaron’s quest, if only for me to understand how to support him better.

I’m giving my first sermon next week, and in all honesty I hope that Christ comes back before then. I feel like an impostor, wielding the bible and talking context when I haven’t read the bible regularly outside of a scholastic context for years. Obviously though God speaks through all kinds of questionable means to proclaim truth (a la Baalam’s “ass”), so I’ll shut up about it. My sermon might talk about that, possibly as a caveat.

After the CHF, I was immediately relieved. Like I’d been holding my breath trying to stop a hiccup. We’ve given our notice to our dear landlord, secured storage for the summer, even solicited for long-term housing in Nanaimo. The only thing we haven’t done is tell Perkin, but I think he’s made some inferences.

Regent has been good to me though, don’t misread me. I love it here, in Vancouver, at Regent, with beloved friends and family, so it’ll be bittersweet to go.

Lessons from Skyrim

Six years into school, two years into a master’s degree and I still hold this romantic idea of reading and studying. For one thing, in my reading fantasy, it is always warm and well-lit. And also, everything I read, I glean profound knowledge from, knowledge that can’t fall out one side of my head right after my eyes finish reading the words, as words are wont to do.

I have several pages open in the browser in front of me: BCIT Automotive Service Technician program on Aaron’s behalf; Regent’s application to graduate in 2012; and VIU’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Technology Diploma.

An issue for me in deciding my present is how well I can project myself into the future–maybe I’ve mentioned this before, but for the past year I haven’t been able to do any projecting, which has directly impacted the decisions I’ve been making lately. That is, what the hell decisions regarding my future do I make if I can’t see it? In the Myers-Briggs matrix, I’m an INFJ, which means that projection and idealism is important to my identity, and how that identity is formed. In short, I’ve been having a quarter-life crisis.

I thought I had it figured out mid-November when I was having all these revelations regarding my gifts and talents, and I was pretty certain I was to pursue an MDiv instead of an MCS, which has me taking Pastoral Ethics and Preaching and whatnot at present. But now, January 8th, I don’t know. I didn’t know in December either. We started going to this great church so that I could project myself into the ministry, or, at least look at what women are doing in the church in a healthy way that a lot of churches aren’t. But the more I saw women working in the church, the more I thought that while I admired them and in some cases wanted to be like them, I don’t think that I’m that person.

I am trying, though. It’s true that I have so-called pastoral gifts, like, strangers love taking to me, and friends usually feel cared for by me, and I can be very compassionate and empathic. Interpretation? I should be a pastor. Um.

Here I should also mention that I’m a discerning person, which on occasion causes me to make leaps and bounds, “assume” things about people or events if you will, as I believe that I’ve figured everything out. “Aha!” moments happen to me every day, and I infuse meaning into everything, appropriate or not. (Do meaningless events even exist? I’m not asking this because I’m a woman, or a hippie, I really want to know. Whatever, different topic.) Interpretation: maybe I’ve spoken too soon about…well, lots of things.

Last night Aaron and I were doing a little Ockham’s Razor-ing, in which we answered the compound question, What I am doing? What should I do? with another question, What do I like to do? to which there finally came an answer, Fishing. Fish. Eating fish, to which another answer, as per the Razor appeared: I should work with Fish. Hence: the above mentioned web pages.

Barbara Mutch mentioned to me that your 20′s are a time for trying things on, but in this day, often that means a different set of credentials. I could try being a carpenter…after a year of school. I could try being a Fisheries tech, after two years of school. I could try to be a pastor after 3 years of post graduate work and $45,000. In spite of all this angst, I have managed to stay on the same scholastic track for six years, accomplishing generally what I set out to accomplish. But I’m not convinced that I’m doing what’s best, or what’s right even. I fear taking a false step, so is it better just to keep moving forward than to try a different path and risk getting lost? I’ve come this far, after all. But how late is too late to turn around and try something different? It’s such a gamble, in the name of contentment, security, happiness, fulfillment.

If I have learned anything from playing Skyrim for the past couple weeks, it’s that once you choose a quest, you can always go back and do another one. You can always return to the places you’ve discovered: the monsters in the Barrow will be there to slay when you get back; the secret chambers to lockpick if you still want to see what’s behind the doors.

Why I Will Not Occupy Vancouver

This article first appeared in Regent College’s student paper, the Etcetera, October 25th, 2011. After its publication, several articles were published in disagreement with mine. The issue isn’t online yet, but when it is, you can read the articles here. 

 

Driving into downtown with some friends last Saturday, I was keenly aware of the presence of the “Occupy Vancouver” protesters not because of their ubiquity (there seemed, as we passed, to be about 30 of them) but because of the lack of traffic flow past the art gallery. Police, ambulance, and fire fighting personnel were set up around the perimeter, the traffic crawling around them in part due to rubberneckers wanting a view of the so-called protest.

Critics of the Occupy Vancouver protest have been pressing the city of Vancouver and the RCMP for the costs associated with the event, and the Province newspaper reported Thursday that so far, the bill is around $500,000. This accounts for the RCMP and VPD on site and on standby, and costs for ambulance and other emergency staff. This figure does not account for the portable outhouses that were brought in for the protesters, nor the costs for the restoration of the grounds of the art gallery after tenters have dug trenches and killed all fauna underneath their tents.

The stress on city infrastructure is tangible, but what probably will not be measured, or cannot be measured, is the impact that the “Occupy ______” movement will have on anything important.

This is one of the major issues with the “Occupy” program, begun by ‘culture jammers’ at Adbusters magazine. One cogent explanation of the movement states, that the Occupy Wall Street movement seeks to end the “monied corruption of America.” The blog also states that a manifesto of demands would be presented to President Obama on the seventh day of the protest, which would have been seven days after September 17th…which would make the date…er…come and gone. So?

And, the folks downtown in our city have so many signs up, the average member of public (e.g., me) has no idea what is really being protested. Homelessness? The debt crisis? Religious pluralism? Boredom? And, what do Tibetan prayer flags have to do with any of those things? Even more pressing, the Magnificat written on a Tibetan prayer flag…?

Another troubling implication of a 24 hour protest is that the folks that spend whole days shouting on art gallery steps really have nothing better to do. Do these people not have jobs? Sadly, many may be laid off, or unemployed, or homeless, or disabled and unable to work, so protesting may be something tangible these people can do to improve their lives and create awareness. And living in a tent aint no thang to folks used to sleeping on streets, or crammed next to others on the floor of a shelter. I get that. What I do not understand is the people I see protesting downtown that look like they have taken showers in the recent past, wear designer jeans, and by all appearances, look able bodied. To these people I would like to suggest, Occupy A Job. Or, better yet, Occupy a Volunteer Position. Coach basketball, teach literacy to others, as it seems like you are more than qualified, Mr. I’m Reading Kafka and Smoking On the Steps. If you have the time to protest for seven days, then you are either a privileged student, unemployed, or homeless. One of these things is not like the other ones.

While I may seem judgemental and myopic…I am. If the protest truly is about stopping, or at least bringing an awareness of “monied corruption,” then the most effective protest I can think of is the public cutting of personal credit cards. Or only using credit when there is capital to pay for it. The debt crisis begins with the individual–do you own your own car? Take out a student loan this year? Have a mortgage? Even if “we are the 99,” we need to take a look at our own propensity to spend needlessly, oppress, coerce, corrupt. Otherwise, we are no better than the things we protest.

But, what does “We are the 99″ even mean? If we want to end corruption in the world, money-based or not, it needs to start with ourselves. If we started thinking less about our entitlements and more about others, everyone would benefit. The money spent on employing police officers for the “peaceful protest” could be spent on education, housing facilities, literacy programs…or real police work. What if each person that was protesting gave an equal amount of time to working at soup kitchens or picking up garbage? Donating extra money to their neighbours. Letting someone else have their seat on the bus…like me, I’m tired of standing.

 

For another, wittier take on this, please see Dr. Stackhouse’s article in the National Post, here.

Chicken…nuggets

Ferociously saddened that I missed Aaron’s call, and simultaneously bolstered and confused that a machinist asked me to eat with him at McDonalds, I stomped home with my little bag of nuggets, eating them faster than I could get home.

My phone buzzed against my ribs a I sat in class. I knew it was Aaron calling but I couldn’t leave the class. Each time the phone buzzed my heart felt heavier. Aaron is in the Nemaiah valley in the Chilcotin, the area west of Williams Lake in BC, fighting a wildfire. He called me via satellite phone, which means that I can’t return his call. It’s disappointing to go to bed without talking with him, hearing his gentle voice.

I hopped off the 41 bus where Dan and I had been speaking, and crossed the street to McDonalds. I watched Super Size Me, save your judgements. I love chicken nuggets. I was glad that the bus went by with Dan in it before he could see I was going to buy fast food. The man just spent a week hunting for food, and I was going to eat…

…anyway. A man, about 40 or so, asked me for the time while I was waiting for my nuggs. Then he asked me If I had come from a class, Is Christian Studies like theology, etc etc. He works at UBC in the machine shop, and ordered a quarter pounder with cheese. He then asked, Am I going to sit down to eat. I felt a little bad for telling him that I had to walk home, because I could have eaten with him. I guess I could have told him about Jesus. Or, the young married woman could walk home the 8 blocks in the dark before it got later. He was disappointed.

I suppose I should note that these occurrences are not abnormal, so I wasn’t shocked at a) him talking to me or b) him asking me to eat with him. The reasons for my lack of shock are twofold: one, older men really like me. Frankly, I’m sure they find me attractive, much more than men of my own age cohort. I’ve noticed this the past 3 years of my life. Two, strangers (of all ages and genders) talk to me on a daily basis. People I have never met initiate conversations with me all the time. I’m not exaggerating.

So I’m not recounting this incident because it was atypical of a day in the life of BJ, but because the encounter with the machinist made me more acutely aware of Aaron’s absence. I wouldn’t be buying chicken nuggets at 10pm if he was home. Strange (er, unfamiliar) men especially wouldn’t talk to me if Aaron was there, unless they happen to be drunk, or crazy, or both.

Actually, I don’t really know why I’m recounting this incident. Mostly I am sad that I didn’t get to talk with Aaron tonight, and sad that he won’t be here this weekend, and sad that I’ve been in Vancouver a month without him. I’m holding off on activities around the city because I want to do things with him, see things with him. The times when this can’t be helped, this collection of new experiences, I find myself regretful, and…sad. Sadness, I have been learning through some readings for a class, is different from depression because it is a feeling, not necessarily a state of being. Sadness ebbs and flows, depression comes to stay for a bit. At least in my estimation.

2 more weeks of missing Aaron, though. I have so many nicknames for him that writing out Aaron is somewhat foreign to my fingers. I mostly write Boo. One day Aaron will be an older man, I mean, around 40-45, and boy is he ever going to find me attractive…

Chickens

As you may have guessed, I am back in Vancouver, back at Regent, back in number 301 (with a balcony! Pipe smoking!). Class began for me on Monday with my seminar on Women’s Faith and Development…going to be outstanding. Barb Mutch teaches it at Carey, and she is a great woman. I had another class on the Theology of Culture last night, and one on the Spiritual Vision of the Great Artists tonight.

My last post was pretty angsty, as Steve put it, but I really enjoyed having so much feedback on the blog. Anyway, if it’s alright with you all, I think that I’m going to shut up about debt and doubts for a bit (well, at least this one post) and tell you about Chickens.

Chickens, as I articulated to Matt and Bri, is my new life goal. I hadn’t named it as such myself, but thinking about my future and what life is for in general, I came to some conclusions about what I want to have and do and see the next 50 some-odd years I may have on this earth. All is gift, and there are some gifts that I would like more than others–like, a dog more than I want my PhD. Ain’t it the truth, ain’t it the truth.

Anyway, with their help I was able to name mine and Aaron’s vision for the future, which included (but is not limited to) having chickens, owning land, building a house, growing a garden, having a dog. Hence, Chickens. It’s our new goal. Once I realised that my goals had changed, and what I wanted as a single young woman I no longer desired, the bottom fell out of the basket so to speak. I looked at my desire to teach this summer, and saw that I didn’t really need to be a teacher proper to teach others, or mentor others, or influence others positively. I could just act out of my experience. Also, to be realistic, I will not get a full ride anywhere, so I would have to pay my own way though my PhD, which would probably take me 5 years to complete. Probably I’d go to St. Andrews (in Scotland) to get my degree, so Aaron would have nowhere to work/ nothing to really do, since he’d like to be a mechanic and one day own his own shop, and I like that vision. So…am I going to drag Aaron around the world with my PhD? I hated the thought of it. Sure, we could own land and have chickens with a PhD. However, we would NOT like to own land in the Canadian prairies while I teach at a Bible college. No offence, prairie people. We just love BC.

So I started asking the question, do I really need a Master’s degree if I’m not pursuing doctoral studies after this? What can I do with an MCS that I can’t do with a BACS? I don’t know. It’s probably the same lack of employability in the public sphere to be honest. But, I love my classes, and the people I study with, and the people who teach at my school. And I am learning, and I do think it is making me a better person, regardless of what I have to say about myself.

I’m waiting for some answers to drop out of the sky, but apparently that’s not how things work around here, so I’m just doing some waiting.

 

PS, I also got a haircut, which, within the framework of my life signifies a big change. The winds are-a-blowin…

intangibles

Marcus the cat is sleeping on our bed, where he has been for the past two hours while I watch Grey’s Anatomy. Don’t tell me what happens; I just began season 7, people. Marcus sleeping is really like meowing on a timer: every few minutes he rolls over and makes the puuuuurrrrrrrowww? noise. Yes I know I wrote a question mark, and that is because his puuurowing sounds like a question. For example: “Purrrrooowww?” “Yes, Perkalicious?”

Fine, I’m a few sips into the bottle. You got me. But now it’s bedtime, so no harm done.

“Puuurrrrrrowww?”
“Yes, Purpindicular, I was planning to get the light.”

But not just yet, I need to talk about my day. I’ve been grouchy for about a week. I managed to suspend the crabbiness briefly for our weekend of mirth in Bella Coola (sidenote: what does Bella mean? I know, beautiful, in Italian, however this does not account for the town Bella Bella, nor does it account for the fact that no Italians live there, only the robust First Nations people, and a few Germans who stay up late talking loudly outside our hotel room door) albeit suspending the suspension of crabbiness to contemplate rather negatively about the purpose of my life. I was grouchy today at work, but not outwardly. I do a rather bang-up job of masking my true feelings when I need to, or perceive the need to. But my heart was grouchy. I was a trash-eating-Oscar-the-grouch-fool. I heard that I need to stand in some line up each month to acquire a new Upass, and I complained about that. Further to this complaint, I don’t really know what to do with my life. And that, my friends, is Getting To The Root Of The Issue.

Marcus is now scowling at me, wrapped up like a cobra by the bedroom door because I refuse to get up to let him out. I’m teaching him patience, one of the many spiritual gifts.

I’m frustrated with my life because it seems like I am setting up my family for a life of mediocre poverty and pay, after investing approximately $70, 000 (yes, a true figure and not a hyperbolous guess) into an education that is not and has not been subsidized by the government in any way, which leads me to a job in a field that cannot afford to dig us out of the financial hole I have dug with my convictions!!

Two exclamation marks: one for emphasis, and one because I am actually exclaiming!

My education is preparing me to work in a church, or work for an NGO, or be a missionary, or get my PhD and $30, 000 later, I can begin to pay back my mounting debt. I realize I’m sounding like a crappy Christian, obeying God’s call but with a bad attitude, which is the worst of sins…but these are my doubts. This is what keeps me up at night, blinking at the ceiling while Aaron sleeps, because I cannot help but feel responsible for the stressed-out life my family is going to lead because of me. I’ve spent every dollar I’ve earned these last six years on my Christian education. And at this rate, I’ll spend the rest of my life paying for the amount I couldn’t cover with cash alone.

Sure, I don’t really know the “true cost of education,” that is, how much professors need to get paid, or how much it costs to heat a building, but I sure do know how much it costs to live in Vancouver. How much a hydro bill is. How many pounds of beans I can buy when it’s March and we’re out of money.

Sometimes I think that I chose wrong, and lately I can’t shake the feeling.

I’m always confronted by people who chose “real” fields and are getting “real” degrees, about my choice of education, and all I can answer them is that I was convicted to do so. But now? I’ve been studying for a quarter of my life, so much so, that if I was studying medicine, I’d be on Grey’s Anatomy doing my residency. But I do not study medicine: I study theology and philosophy and literature. The intangibles. If I was studying medicine, you’d come to me and ask about the pain in your shoulder or that bump near your ankle. People don’t ask me questions. I’m expected to live the questions, to field the answers with my life. All the while paying tens of thousands of dollars to gain knowledge just in case someone asks. People don’t ask the questions I’m learning to answer. People like to watch other people, and they get their answers.

I failed one of my final exams because, instead of studying whom did what in which book of the Bible, I was helping my neighbours. I know, it’s what Jesus would have done. My professor told me that I had learned the right thing, and bumped up my grade after I explained what had happened. It was kind of him. I haven’t told anyone that I failed it, because even though I was encouraged that I had done the right thing, I still felt embarrassed that I couldn’t juggle everything I needed to in order to succeed. I’m still embarrassed about it.

Writing this didn’t resolve anything like I thought it would. There used to be a time when I would journal everything, writing little pencils into littler nubs. Now my thoughts just careen about in my head, like I hear a .22 does when you get shot with it. Wreaking havoc, touching too much.

 

…I’ve got to let the cat out.