Last night i didn't have a car, so i had to walk home from work. It was almost minus 3000 degrees, and snowing like mad. so needless to say, i wasnt overjoyed for an hour long walk. so i set off, with 3 sweaters, and the wind whiping in my face so hard that i couldn't see. but that died down after two minutes, and.. it was beautiful. in writer's craft we are making a poetry portfolio, so while walking i decided to give a lame attempt at a poem. and here's what i came up with. it's really lame, so laugh, but in a way.. i like it.

how calm it is to step outside
into a flurry of snowflakes that sparkle up in the sky
to watch as they gently float down from the heavens
as some magical celeistial body
getting caught in my eyelashes.

how wonderful it is out here,
to prentend to be something that i am not
to be a wanderer, a lover, an explorer without a busy timetable
to step outside of a fast pased world
into a timeless expance of beauty

how peacful it is to be lost in awe,
to reconize the small things that we so often forget
make our lives as great as they are
to forget the worry that lingers in our thoughts
and to find strength in a smile, becuase life is such a gift

how beautiful it is,
to see footrpints trailing behind me in the snow
to mark my insignificant existance on this vast earth
if only for a minute, untill the wind sweeps them up
destroing all evidence.

ordinary.

" take my hand,

Live while you can

Don't you see your dreams lie right in the palm of your hand"

" Please come with me,

See what I see.

Touch the stars for time will not flee. "

take off your shoes, and lose your socks. pull out your guts, and dry them on the rocks, so you can live like all the rest..
with bare insides,
and cute outsides.

blahhhh

For so long, i've felt like i've lost my ability to write.

almost as if all inspiration stopped inspiring me.

and the ink ran dry upon this thirsty paper

today, however, i differ from that. maybe just a little.

i was looking at the book Velvet Elvis,

and i guess you could say i was inspired.

What if one were to write, even if they had nothing

to write about. But they just worte because

writing is a delicate form of art.

and we are to never stop painting becuase each

picutre is different and changing,

like discovering God.

So, why not.

why not do what you love, what you enjoy,

even if you feel there is no point, and

no inspiration driving it.

but do it man.

do it becuase you can, becuase the process

becomes such a beauitful product.

draw, becuase the world is beautiful.

paint, becoase the colours are bold enough

to light up a day.

write, becuase you can.

write, to change the world.

becuase you could.

you can.

hope is a driving force.

let everyone use their gifts. not quietly.

but LOUDLY. let them be noticed.

so others will take noitce.

beucase those who are inspired are insipartions.

we used to be dreamers.

stop dreaming, they say.
dreams are for the weak.
they hold no realistic value.
there is no place for dreamers in this world.
stop loving, they say.
love is not realistic,
love is for the weak.
love is a string of broken relationships,
of exposed vulnerability,
that leaves you looking like a fool.
i am a fool.
stop hopeing, they say.
hope is merely faith.
and faith is based on something
that we only believe in.
it's not for sure, they say.
so give up.
they say it's foolish, that idea of faith.
get real, they say.
they say you can't love untill it hurts.
beucase it always hurts.
and in the end you can't stop loving.

My 17th Summer

This summer i worked at camp for 8 weeks. It was a long summer, full of love, joy, hardships, camper's wet beds, raccoons, laughter, amazing days off, boating sways, and redemption. I was reading a book called "Through Painted Desserts" by Donald Miller, and i found a quote...
this quote is the only acuarte way to describe one of the BEST summers...

"No, Life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rives, has to stand in an empty desert wand whisper sonnets under his breath..."

* * *

This is exactly where life begins. It begins where it is welcomed

with arms that are open, begging to learn, dying to love,

asking to experience new things, yearning to create, attempting what was once thought to be impossible...

Evenings Off.

This is the regular routine;
-Starting site work with Caitlin which usualy involves grosse garbage bins with bags that drip on yyou, as you attempt to throw them into the huge dumpster. This reulsts in much screaming, and on-lookers laughing.
-Then we clean the Crow's NEst, which is a big building, sort of like a theater, you could say. We turn on the cd player and sing and dance on the stage-ish part for about 10 min, untill we decide to acutaly sweep the place.
-then we go out on the porch and look over the lake and the sunset.
-this is followed by rolling down support-staff hill, and hitting numerous rocks and sticks in the porcess, resulting in real scarted up legs.
I LOVE CAMP.
but i can';t wait to have cmapers againg.

Dusk and Summer

Five things that i like a whole lot:

1. SUMMER

2. Sunsets

3. Dani

4. Forests

5. SUMMER

quote.

" Promise me you'll always remember:

You're braver than you believe,
and stronger than you seem,

and smarter than you think"

-From Christopher Robin to Pooh

AA Milne

this is for keeps.

today is WONDERFUL. as was yesturday, and last night, as was this moment on top of the DA building roof. ohhh rebels, HA- how i wish.
i am so stoked, and i dont even know what for!
a week ago today i retunred back from France, which is vacation i will never, ever forget. and if i do, i have about 500 photos to make up for lost moments. there's not much i can say about it, because i feel that my words will not do it justice.
im so stoked that the sun is out, im stoked for life and the way that events are slowly unfolding. maybe all good things do not come to an end, maybe they just get delyed a bit...

either way i've decided (for good, this time) that there is now way i will stay back for gr13 at higshcool. i will go to university, beucase i've discovered there's a world outside there besides this small town, and i want so badly to explore it.

"I learned things here that some men never see, oh The lucky ones, the lucky ones know exactly what I mean"

look.

i used to think it was crazy that i was the only kid left living at home, but i just realised... in a year and a bit i too will be moving out...

Mel's 17th.

Life moves fast.
But i enjoy these sunny days.

Grace, Rachel, Allie.

Remeber every night before bed we would run to the field behind meadow lands? And we would make this weird sort of traingle shape thing, lying our heads on each other's bellies, gazing at the stars, trying to find our constelation. And we would talk, and talk, untill the dorm lady person came and made us go to bed. remember the cool night air? remember the stars, and how brightly they glowed? remember all the good times?
remeber playing catches with oranges? remeber making pita's on grace's belly? remmebr all our canoe trip adventures? them spoons? underline? i miss you guys, a whole lot. We'll always be GAR.

how are death and life so closeley related?
how can joy and suffering be so closey intwinded?
why does beauty and brokeness come so gently hand in hand?

i am hopeful, becuase others are hopefull,
yet i wish that bad things would not happen to otherwise good people.
they say hope is often found on the horizion with each sunruse and sunset...
oh, if i could only grab that beauty and hope, and spread it around,
so that it could catch on like a angry fire...
we live in a world full of cynics, and sometimes i'm one.

on seizing the day, kind of.

at camp we did personality tests, and i found out i was the kind of person who will wake up in the morning and be like "whoa what a beautiful day" and want to seize the day, but i will spend the first half of the day deciding what to do, and then once i finally figure out what to do...it's like too late.
i think that means im somewhat passive.
so thursday night i was bored and i seized the night.
i slept outside, in a tent.
i listened to the weather, and i think that day was -22
it was worth it though, and nobody believed me.
but i will make a concious effort to seize the day more often.
ALSO, dani now has her G2, adn a CARRR!!!!
and she drove us around last night.
freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedom!

In the Soundless awe and wonder, words fall short to hope again.
How beautiful, how vast Your Love is new forever,
world without an end.

(i took this Summer '06, Lake Ontatrio)
In world religions class, i learnt that one of the reasons that cuase people to seek out a God is due to a "cosmic wow" expereince. This is expereince is one of utter amazment, of wonder. It's standing under a warm sky at night with a canvas of stars glowing phenominaly high, high above you. And in the moment, deep deep down, you know there must be a High Power, and Creator, there must be a beautiful God somewhere out there with creativitvety, Love, and power to create all that is around me, right here, in this moment...

heck yes.

things are decent.
i now have my G1,
a job (that i actualy enjoy!)
consequently, money(that im saving for france!)
decent semester 2 classes
and i have a new years resolution:
->to live with an open mind
->to have an objective point of veiw
-> to live simply and learn a lot.
i feel like dancing, or something.

May Angels lead you in.

hearing about the four (now five, i think) guys who died in a car crash this weekend seemed like normal news to me. that is, untill i found out one of the guys who died, Mike Fleming, attended the same camp as me. although he went a different session and i never actualy met him, it hit closer to my heart than i anticipated.
i've found out that seeing others suffering hurts. i've found it fustrating that your not able to do anything for them, except offer to listen and try to be there. as if that is nearly enough...
yet nothing seems to feel exactly right.
i've found myself happy alot this weekend and past few days, yet i feel guilt too.
i feel guilty beucase i am able to let others make me laugh, and to enjoy life while so many others are numb with suffering, and mourning the loss of a close freind.
daily things now seem so trivial and meaningless. i have found so many things in my life that i think are so important, yet in the big picutre and grand scheme of things, they are a tiny grain of sand. they are so small, so worthless, but i spent a lot of time focusing on it. oh if we were only able to focus on whats important! to take NOTHING for granted...
beucase life is something so easily taken for granted.
all i can think of is four young boys who lost their lives way to quickly.
they were so young. Loved ones die, yet life still finds a way to carrey on. it's hard to surrender to that, but one cannot live in the past hurt.
May angels lead you in.
hear you me, my friend.
on sleepless roads the sleepless go,
may angels lead you in.

on redemption.

I still sit in this corner and eat.

Redemption is so sweet.
The very idea of something worthless beeing re-created into something of worth seems beautiful. it is hopefull; not disappointing.
i wish i could redeem life.
maybe then more people would enjoy it.
"Dead man, is it being high that makes you alive?
It makes you leave behind three boys and a wife in '89...
My God, what a world you love.
men burry their sons and without thought,
just walk away..."-As Cities Burn

On blankets, pt 2.

Ah winter break, so quickly come and gone.
i miss skiing. and the veiw up at the top of the mountain is quite decent too.

I took the quote from my last blog, and posted it on my fridge where my family puts quotes.

And my mom and i discussed it.

and i have thought about it some more.

What is so wrong with Christianity, what cuases it to turn others away? Why does it deny us the beauty of beeing human, why does it ignore gaps that need to be filled in with the individual? what are the boundaris set up between people and cultures?

It's the part where Relgion comes in.

Sometimes i dont think of myself as relgious,

Yeah i believe in God, yet i see it more as a personal relationship... not a religion.

relgion sounds so cold and exculisve,

i dont like it's negative connotations.

and i think the relgious part of chirstianity is what creates these problems.

Our warped ideas of how christianity should be, our ideas that are so wrongwe add them to Christianity, creating some sort of werid religon.
The thing is, our Churchs get so messed up.

it's cuase we have these ideas of how we should be,

and we then attribute them to God.

Maybe we try to make God like us, or we enforce our ideas on others,

saying they were Gods ideas.

This is maybe where the problem starts.

As Christians, we are told that the world will not accept us. We are not of it, so how then do we relate with it?

There's truth in that statement, yet we recive it differently.

we have this idea that those who arent chirstians wont understand us, wont like us, wont be freinds with us.

however that is false. But we believe it, so we push these ppl far away from us.

we deny them any chance of even getting to know us, beucase we think they wont accept us...

we end up pushing those away who could acutaly accept us.

We are the ones creating a rift between culutres, between communites, between ppl.

we're setting up boundaries, unecessary ones.

Also, Some ppl think we should not hang out with those that are less than gracefull,

like druggies, prostitues, or even no chirstians,and i think that ridicouls.

Jesus hung out with these people, they ACCEPTED HIM.

why do we shun these ppl that may be so ready to accept us?

again we create boundaries.

but in truth, we need to let these i deas go, and hang out with those that are less than lovley, dont have this idea ingrained in your head that we will never be accepted, ebcuase it pushes others away from us.

I think a kkey idea is this;

You must seperate your ACTIONS, not YOURSELF from the world.

i think there is beauty in beeing human.

is where we find our individuality, who we are.

but is the beauty taken away when we are told how to act, what to do, we have boundaires rules and guidlines set up by religon?

not God, religion.

I still get confuised about this.