age

age is playing hopscotch up and down my spine
and silverishly creeping at my temples.
she is settling my inner jumpiness,
a little bit anyway.
she's confering wisdom
which i take in sips,
when i really should take gulps.
no wonder it takes so long
to learn
how to live.

i have thought of age in such negative terms,
all the things it takes away. .
independence, dignity, continence
strength.
yes, I've thought of it as a
thief
of thoughts
dreams
health
but as much as she seems to take away,
she also gives
experience and knowledge
insight
patience,
(sometimes).


age seems capricious,
far too stingy with some
and way too generous with others.

no rhyme
no reason.
just mystery.

it is no hardship really
to pay the toll
that age exacts
in exchange for
the messy sweetness
of being
here.

i know
i should be
infinitely more grateful
to breathe,
and feel and
think thoughts.
laugh,
know love
and
feel that reassuring thump
in my chest.
because there's no telling
how long.

i need to come
to a detente
with age
she will not stop for me
she will not,
my lifelong companion.
i try to erase all traces of her
with hair dye
and barbells.
i stick out my tongue
at age.
but age just grins back
at me through
my own laugh lines.
and says
"You know I'll win".

A bit of interesting news. .

A little something to think about when we shop at Dollarama, WalMart, well, anywhere really.



China overtakes Germany as biggest exporter

10/01/2010 12:09:11 PM

CBC News
New trade figures show that China has overtaken Germany to become the world's top exporter.


According to data released by China's customs agency Sunday, Chinese exports surged by 17.7 per cent in December, compared to the same month in the previous year.

Exports for the last month of 2009 were $130.7 billion, raising the total for the year to $1.23 trillion, ahead of the $1.20 trillion forecast for Germany.

Last year wasn't easy for China's exporters as the global economic slowdown cut demand for the country's goods.

Every month since late 2008, the government has reported export figures lower than they had been a year earlier. Then in the last few weeks of 2009, the trend reversed.

China's gross domestic product expanded 8.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2009, up from 7.9 per cent in the second quarter and 6.1 per cent in the first, buoyed by $603 billion in stimulus spending.

China surpassed the United States as the biggest auto market in 2009 and is on track to soon replace Japan as the world's second-largest economy. China passed Germany as the third-largest economy in 2007.

I'm excerpting Chapter 1 page 24, "Even Them, Even Then?" Brad Jersak's book "Can You Hear Me? Tuning in to the God Who Speaks". You can order this on Amazon, and I really, really recommend it if you are wanting to have an authentic relationship with God, improve on the relationship you have with him, or begin one with him. I am re-reading this for the third time. Maybe I don't retain information very well? Well, that may be true, but the book is that good. There are familiar references to Bible characters (for those of you who haven't read the Bible, there are books, chapter and verses for you to look them up).

" In theory, those who are most repentant, most obedient, most holy should hear God's voice most clearly and most often. Those who live to please God and submit wholly to his Lordship should get the best 'reception' as they tune in to his voice. Oddly, neither scripture nor experience support that theory. God's voice calls us to repentance, obedience and submission; those who hear and obey are blessed. But those are the results of hearing him, not the pre-conditions. If I can't hear his voice until I'm obedient, what am I obeying? And how obedient do I need to be for him to talk to me? Or how disobedient before he stops talking to me? If hearing God's voice was conditional upon my behaviour, the relationship would be a formula revolving around me and my performance. "Good people hear - bad people don't". That's the very religion Jesus opposed. Getting right with God is always and only a response to the grace gift of his voice.

Certainly there can be a famine of hearing when hearts are unrepentant, but that doesn't mean God is not speaking. As a band called "Out of the Grey" once wrote, "He is not silent, we are not listening." But the Lord has ways of catching our attention, even while we're plugging our ears. The danger of refusing to heed God's voice is not that he will resort to the silent treatment. Rather, we are warned that he will begin to speak more clearly and more forcefully, which is not always a pleasant experience (remember Jonah?). You can hear his voice as an ointment that heals or a sword that pierces. In either case, it will bring freedom and life when we finally listen.

When the prodigal son was still wallowing in the pigpen of his rebellion, he came to his senses and resolved to repent (Luke 15:17 - 18). Why? It was only because the voice of God graciously spoke to his heart. When Hosea's unfaithful wife had left her husband, forgotten the Lord and chased after multiple lovers, God said "Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her." (Hosea 2:14). In fact, most of the prophetic words in scripture are negative, not because God is generally grumpy, but because his love compels him to keep speaking to his wayward ones until they return home. If I read men like Jonah and David right, whether we are following God perfectly or running away feverishly, he graciously, relentlessly, even indiscriminately continues to speak! No wonder the poet Francis called him "the Hound of Heaven".

I've met a number of men in prison Bible studies who shared that it was while they were still in a stupor of a heroin trip or in the despair of prison lock-up that God visited them, spoke to them and saved them. I've heard the testimonies of women who, while still working the streets in East Vancouver, heard God's voice inside, warning them about which men would beat them and which were safe. God spoke to them even then, even there. Does this offend you? Why not let the scandalous kindness of God hearten you instead? On your very worst days, while you are still kicking against his will (Acts 26:14) God continues to broadcast his words of love, comfort, warning and promise in your direction. You will hear him and when you do, just see to it that you don't heard your heart."

The remainder of the book has very practical exercises, to help you know God, help you learn how to 'tune in', listen to him. . . for real.

Ode to a Canadian winter

Winter, I feel that I must tell you something.
Since I have long since lost my sense of wonder with snow fort building,
eating icicles and tobogganing,
I have come to find you pretty much intolerable.
By the way, lots of us Canadians feel the same way, though I certainly don't speak for all those who have fallen under your frosty spell, who think they've befriended you, I see right through you and your wiles, Winter.
I will not gush about your beauty.
Not today. Today I am determined to tell you exactly what I think of you.
Spring is gorgeous and fresh, liberating.
Summer though sometimes smothering, is so much more easygoing and mellow,
Autumn, though lovely is always overshadowed by you.
Then, once the distracting niceties of Christmas and the new year are
used up and worn out,
We remember what you're really like and we don't want you.
Because you suck.

You take away our carefree and spontaneous feelings.
There is no more 'quick' about anything.
Everything takes longer . .
getting ready to go out
traveling,
doing errands,
There are layers to put on,
This takes time.
We have to shovel snow.
We scrape it off our vehicles.
This is just annoying.
Your ice is slippery and you lash at us with your frozen rain and whipping wind.
You're so cold.
I don't like you.
In fact, the older I get the more I can't stand you.

You take away fun.
You make my nose run.
You make my teeth clack.
You make me wheeze when I breathe.
You make cycling mostly impossible,
(for which I despise you)
You take away the gorgeous sunshine and you substitute
brooding clouds.

You make getting into and out of the bath and shower unpleasant.
You make our rooms cold.
and our bedsheets freezing.
You breathe on the blankets.
You make furnaces a necessity, which only pleases the gas company.
You make us shut our windows and doors.
You turn us into homebodies.
We don't want to go out in you.
You always wear out your welcome.
Most of us only tolerate you for that 2-week interval between Christmas and New Year's,
by which time we are thoroughly sick of you and want you to go away.
But you stay
and stay.
You stretch out your icy fingers and smite our lovely plants.
We raise them up and you take them out with your sparkly blanket of death.

You cause us to slip and fall.
You turn our roads into skating rinks.
You turn walking the dog into a frantic, frozen gauntlet.
You are the father of all potholes, which are born every spring,
making driving less like straight lines and more like an obstacle course.
Turning our other 3 seasons into prolonged bouts of road closures and repairs.
You turn our eavestroughs into breeding grounds for ice daggers.
You turn our beaches into frozen wastelands,
and you squash our memories of warm sunshine.
You take away our picnics and barbecues.
Yes, even that feisty fireball seems to rise and set behind your curtain of ice.

You drive away flocks of birds, butterflies and senior citizens.
Who, in their infinite wisdom, avoid you like the plague
because
they all know
you suck!

At some point I'd like to fly, or at least drive away from you and your ice grip.
Become a stereotype.
A snowbird.
Top up my out of country health insurance.
Hide from you in the land of Dentu-Cream and support hose.
Get a wicked tan.
And laugh in your general direction.

hot and not

here are a few little thoughts from my brain on what's hot and what's not

note:
i may or may not confer hotness upon any of these things, just trendspotting.


HOT/ NOT
So You Think You Can Dance / SYTYCD without Mia Michaels

reduce, reuse, recycle/ not caring about the 3 Rs

saving $/ wasting $

teen vampires/ teen vampires

looking younger when you're older/ botox, surgery and suddenly fat lips

H1N1/ H1N1 - blech.

'bucc', 'sick'/ gee whiz, neat

blindingly white teeth/ you guessed it. . . yellow ones

reality tv/ desire to vote ppl out of everything in real life

XBox/ Wii

any other hockey team/ Leafs

gift cards/ gifts that make you cringe inwardly

cyber/ face to face *this is so sad :( *

sliders/ giant, artery clogging burgers

scarves/ pen necklaces

castro hats/ bucket hats

getting Christmas shopping done early/ having to do Christmas shopping at all

mystery

I'm wondering how comfortable I am with mystery.
There are things I will never know.
Why is death so capricious and random?
Why do the bad get away with their badness?
Why are the good given the shaft?
Why does the heart choose the way it does?
Why does the sun seem to shine upon some and the shadows never lift from others?
Why is justice so often miscarried?
Why can't people come back from the dead to tell us what to expect?
Why can't we see God?

God.
God is a mystery.
God is
at home in paradox,
existing, working in and through
divine, human
architect, infant
one, three
love, judgement
almighty, intimate
creating the universe, matter and anti matter,
forces, light, elements,
intricate creatures, seen and unseen.
Maker of worlds unknown, far, far, far from our weak eyes
and our toy telescopes circling a tiny corner of the cosmos.
i could stop there, stupefied,
monosyllabic.
unable to comprehend.
mysterious greatness is all around
I look but can't see.
Why is my vision reversed?
Why do i magnify the trivial and trivialize the magnificent?
Mystery, I'm Helen Keller.
How can I make sense of you?
I can yell and flail my arms to strike out at you.
I can bump into you and not even see you.
You will elude me
and entice me,
frustrate me.

Goodness is sweet like honey.
It's no mystery.
It just is.
Why question it?
It's the quintessential feeling of being home.
It's aaaaaaahhh, like lying down when you're tired and feeling so perfectly at rest.
It is light, it's that gorgeous 'blindness' we get when the brightness of the sun is too much for us and we close our eyes
and bask and sigh.
So welcome.
So wanted and loved.

The origin of evil perplexes me.
Blackness.
Malignant.
It makes my brain and my soul hurt to think about it.
God is good.
He designed everything to be perfect.
We all know it didn't turn out that way.
How did Lucifer, his perfect creature change?
What was the catalyst for this thing, this evil that grew and gestated in his core? and how dare he infect us with it?
Some say there is no evil.
I am certain this is untrue and that is no mystery.
Blatantly present everywhere.
viral,
predatory,
destructive.
real.

Mystery.
God.
Good.
Evil.

A few small words with so many billions of us crammed into them.
Trying to make sense, grow, live.
Trying to understand these hard to understand things.


Will we ever?


Of course not. . .


and that's okay.

food

I love food.
I love everything about it.
I love to shop the market, love the grocery store, the gourmet shop, the baking supply store, the cheese shop, the butcher, the farm.
I love to take a collection of disparate ingredients and put them together
to make something beautiful and delicious.
I love fresh, in season, quality food. I love to develop its flavour. I love to serve food.
I love to make people happy with meals, desserts.
I might not always hit the mark, but I really try.
It's an ever increasing passion.

I love to watch chefs prepare food, this is a longstanding fixation. . from watching Julia Child on PBS in the early 70s, to Food Network's molecular gastronomists like Heston Blumenthal, the Rubino brothers from Rain, i watch and watch. . there is almost nothing I love more than seeing things stirred, sauteed, melted, poured, ladeled, browned, chopped, minced, kneaded and glazed.
I love to think of cooking.
I love to pore over my food magazines, cookbooks. I love to plan menus.
I try not to waste food, that makes me sad.
I get giddy thinking about buying a new knife.
I love my sharpening steel.
I love my copper bottomed, heavy gauge stainless cookware.
I love tongs.
I love my microplane grater.
I love smoked paprika.
I love grey salt.
I love thyme and parsley.
I love vanilla beans.
I love melting chocolate over simmering water.
I love fresh pineapple.
I love cinnamon and fresh ginger.
I love to work with. .
a fresh cut of meat,
a fragrant, piney bunch of rosemary,
fresh, ruby coloured berries,
a dense loaf of bread,
beautiful 'rainbow' carrots with lacy green tops,
golden paper-wrapped bars of french bittersweet chocolate,
amber jars of melon blossom honey,
blocks of pale yellow butter,
the most wonderful things I can afford . it makes such a difference.

You can't make bad food taste good, but you can make great food taste amazing, if you respect it, respect the gift of the ingredients, respect the preparation techniques and respect the people you will be serving.

I don't really enjoy eating at restaurants. . I feel too removed from the process, I don't know what they're doing to the food. I don't know what kind of ingredients they're working with. Do they care about quality? Are they fry happy? Do they nuke everything? Do they use frozen, canned, packaged? Do they care? Are they handling food safely? There are too many unknowns. Makes me angry when people don't care. I'd rather go hungry. I want to go into their kitchens, their walk in fridges, their freezers . .or maybe I don't? Cooking at home is the way to go. . unless you can find those people out there who love good food, who can do it justice.

I spend pretty much every day daydreaming of recipes, ingredients.
I work at my job, but my mind is always dreaming of running a shop,
baking, serving, catering, planning events, talking to customers. .

Who knows, some day I might take a giant risk and go for it?!
In the meantime there are cookbooks to collect, food to make, new ingredients to try.
*smile*

you, me, us.

do you feel like you've reduced yourself to a mere Tweet? status line?
do you feel like your contact with others is changing,
becoming more hands off?
do you feel strange when it's real?
do you feel like we are all heading down this 21st century path in parallel tracks,
with less and less intersecting?
less connecting.
feelng less authentic.

'keeping in touch' never felt less like touch.
never felt less kept, just the opposite.
shifting, moving away, with only illusions of being joined
by flimsy, breakaway ties,

no one has time.
everyone is busy.
'we should get together' comes out of everyone's mouths,
but is becoming more of a vague sentiment.

no one reads
everyone skims.
things have to be said in less time because no one has any.
wrds r chngng, ppl.
phrases are disappearing, btw.
c u L8r, English language.
magazines and newspapers are vanishing.

phones are becoming unlike anything we've known before.
they follow us everywhere,
but nobody talks.
rapid fire abbreviation codes.
thumbs are wearing out.
there's nothing wrong with technology.
We humans have a big problem with moderation.
i think we have a problem, period.
boundaries are disappearing.
wireless,instant, everywhere.
faces all staring at screens.
hands on keyboards.
we have stopped dreaming and doing
and we pretend.
we take endless quizzes, we play games,
we pretend to be farmers,
we pretend to run cafes,
we pretend to garden,
we display our lives in picture albums,
video clips.
we think we know each other
but we are losing our way.
we are losing our ability to think
google thinks for us, tells everything we need to know.

we are losing our patience.
everything has to be high speed.
click,
click,
search, scroll.
we are simultaneously awakening and falling asleep.
our creations are holding us captive,
and we are so willing.
it's so easy to sacrifice live interaction, if we want.
and we do.
we communicate on our own terms,
when we want,
how we want,
with whom and
for how long.
what's happening to us?
are we losing our essence? is living becoming virtual and spiritless?
is the mess and drama of each other being distilled into YouTube clips?
is human need and cry being made into 'cause groups' to join?
undemanding, sterile and manageable.
Can we do something that costs us something other than money?
Can this spell be broken?
Can we learn to live with technology without being sucked into it's vortex of unreality?
Can we still hear and see each other?
Can we bring back face to face?
Can we get back to meeting and joining?
Parallel is not so good for us.
We need to cross.
Sometimes we need to crash and break down
to notice each other.
Real will always be better than unreal.
Real isn't always good.
It isn't always pleasant or tidy or easy.
But it is what we are. .
you
me
us.