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.

On Blankets.

"I have come from heaven not to do my own will but to do the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that i shall lose none of what he has given me, But raise them up at the last day."

-John 6:38

God is into keeping his people,
not losing them.
Us, as Chirstians, tend to push non-chirstians away from ourselves.
i dont know why, but sometimes we push them away from God.
We feel like they shouldn't accept us, so we don't accept them.
I think it's funny that Christians end up turning soo many ppl away from Christianity, while trying to save them.
I hate the term "save". as if our only goal is to convert others.
maybe it should be.
but that sounds so lame.
i just want to spread God's love in joy, in hopes that others will recieve that love and joy.
sort of like this:

"Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words"

I got a book for chirstmas called "Blankets"
and its real good. it is the story of a boy's life,
he grew up in a chirstian home, but slowly loses faith as he finds his first love,
falls away from it, and moves on in life.
they christians in his life caused him to fall away from Christianity, i think
and the end he says this:

But i can't deny my lack of faith either.
i still believe in God; the teachings of Jesus, the Bible even,
but the rest of Christianity... it's the Bible, the churches, it's dogma--
only sets up boundaries between people and cultures. It denies the Beauty of beeing human.
and it ignores all these gaps that need to be filled by the individual.

-Craig Thompson

this makes me think.
when i think about it, i never come to any conclusion...

what is so wrong with christianity?

what is the beauty of beeing human?

what gaps need to be filled by the individual?

We could feel alive.

i want to actualy do something with my life.
i want it to have significance.
i dont want to lead the average life, with the average goals...
as in, find a husband and have an ok marriage, have decent children, find a job that pays good, and have a nice house.
although i would like that, i want more than that.
i want to have a job that i actualy like, a job where i can help others out, and make a difference.
i want a marriage that i will delight in, and a husband that will encourage me.
i want children with beautiful smiles that know how to actualy live.
i will show them that life is what you make it,
and it IS possible to have love and laughter, joy and peace, in life,
it's affected by the decisions you make.
I want to make a difference.
I want to have an impact on my community and those around me.
we have become so used to poverty and brokness,
we never give it a second thought.
i want to create change.
to somehow open others eyes to see life in a new sort of way.
to be genuine...
TO BE REAL.
i want to actualy be alive in this world were so many are dead.
no dead as in cease to live, but dead as in lack of life,
lack of interest, lack of motivation, lack of purpose,
lack of direction...
* * * *
Saturday night was beautiful.
there's something so calming and beautiful about the night sky
especially out in the country where all the lights from town are hidden
and you can faintly see houses in the distance as white chirstmas lights outline them.
we went for a walk which ended up beeing almost 2.5 hours long
but it was worth it, i think
although we had to hop a few eletric fences,
got a zillion soakers
walked through a feild of mud up past our ankles
and all the while beeing super dark, and scary
it was worth it to be with freinds
to have cool conversations
and to actualy feel alive for once, after weeks of ISUs and tests.
i am content.

on beeing young and Aspiring

these are pcitures of: my 6 yr camper alexis and me, she couldnt sleep so i took her out in th e hall read to her, and she fell asleep on my lap
and, arron mathew and some leader at our Disco camp fires.
this is how arron prays: dear God, thankyou that i love you. thankyou that you are Lord of my life, and thankyou for the people in china. and bless mommy and daddy and anutie...

remember when we were young?
remeber when we were young and we felt so invincible?
we had the whole world at our hands, and our whole lives ahead of us.remember life was exciting, joyfull, something we loved.it was a constant adventure we always craved,remeber everything amazing us?

i hate this whole idea of growing older.
i hate when were older we have a certain level of matuirty to live up to.
and you cant do any of those things you did when you were little,
like lying under the sky and watching the clouds as they change forms above you.
our lives are turned into a day to day routine,
filled with stress, worry and school work.
and i hate it i hate it i hate it!whatever happend to living life simply,
to living life freely?living with the simple spirit of a child?
well, i am a child.
i am still young. i have not even lived half of a normal life span.
and im not going to waste the rest of my time trying to be old.

i refeused to be looked down upon beucase i am young.
i refuse to be seen as useless and just wanting attention.
i refuse to be thought of as dumb, or immature.
i refuse to have my life limited,
i refuse to be held captive to those ideas of how i should be,
or how i should act.i am young, i am foolish.i have dreams,
i have ambitions, i have goals and aspirations,
and i refuse to let others take those away from me.
i refuse to abondon this childlike joy that surrounds mei refuse to stand still,
i will dance.
i will sing.
i will play childish games.
i will lie under the sky and wtach clouds trade forms above me
i refuse to be quiet and unheardi will have an impact,
i will make i differencei will Love God,
i will delight in Him.i will live simplyi will never stop striving to see beauty ineverythingi refues to be confined.
i will never stop beeing all that i am.