What Have I To Give?

This is the season of giving gifts. Some of the gifts are simple and handmade, while others are more extravagant. Regardless of the price tag attached to each gift, I know how important it is to feel as though you have something to offer to those around you. There is nothing I enjoy more Christmas morning than watching the look on the faces of my family as they open their presents. It feels good to be able to offer something that brings so much joy.



Beyond the Christmas season, with consumer messages and rushing around to find the perfect gift, it is still important to feel like you have something to offer. Every year when I return to work, I am constantly amazed that I am welcomed back with open arms and opens hearts. I return to work after I have finished another year of university and I feel empty. I don't think that I have anything to offer to those who I live with and work for. Somehow they find that I do. When I am incapable of seeing that, they are.



In every relationship I begin, be it a friendship or a romantic relationship, I am amazed that there is someone who sees in me something that I can offer to them. I don't feel as though I do very much for other people. It's been easy to not realize that I do things for other people because they just accept that that is how I am. Since high school I have been the soccer mom, a role that is so far reaching in scope. I bake cookies and meals for people when they don't have the time to. I am the shoulder to cry on and the one people seem to come to for advice. I edit papers, I make sure assignments are handed in on time, I make sure that my friends are where they are supposed to be. I do a lot of little things that I don't see as adding up to much. I wish I thought they did, but I don't.



I don't have a lot to offer anyone in this season of gifts. As a student and a musician, I don't have a lot of money to offer to anyone. I don't have a lot of free time in my life, but I am working on that. I should have more in the coming year. I'm not at work as often as I should be, I'm not home as much as my parents want me to be, I don't volunteer as often as I should. There is so little that I do and I wish it was more. It's hard to want to offer things when they are things that you simply don't have.



In the season of offering whatever it is that you have to offer, both to those around you and to the Saviour whose birth we celebrate in this season, I know that I don't think I have much. There is one thing that I do have to offer and that is my heart.



It's not a perfect heart. It has been broken in the past and there are a few pieces missing. My heart does hurt often for those I love and those who I don't know, but whose suffering I cannot ease in the world. It is a soft heart that does ache and cry a lot. It feels so much, but it always available for someone new to walk into. There will always be space in my heart to love another person who needs someone to care for them. That can be as simple as having someone call to check up on them every once in awhile. It can be as complicated as finding the person to spend the rest of your life with.



For all of the faults my heart has, it is the one gift I have to give. And I will always be ready to give it to those who need it.

Welcome to Our World

Tonight is the night that we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. We welcome into the world a helpless child who came to be the saviour of the world. Tonight I was wondering what kind of world we have to offer and what welcome we would give if tonight another child was born?

Tonight there are soldiers far from their families, attempting to create peace for many. There are homes where there is not enough to eat and places where there is not enough love. There still isn't peace in the Middle East, greed motivates many actions in the world and compassion is lacking in many ways.

We are killing our world with global warming and taking for granted many things that we shouldn't. There are too many who are left out in the cold where there is more than enough to keep everyone warm and sheltered.

What world is it that we are supposed to welcome a child into? How are we equipped to allow a child who comes to save the world? What have we to offer to such a child?

We have a world where there is more hatred than love, more greed than compassion and more desperation than relaxation. We do not know how to welcome many people into our lives, let alone a helpless child.

We need a saviour more than anything right now. We need someone to come into our lives and remind us how to love. What we need is more than what we have. We get the reminder once a year that we are supposed to love and care for those around us. We are reminded that we are not the most important people in our lives, although we may feel as though we are.We need to remember that life should be different than the one we have created with all of our technology and rushing from one place to the next. The way it should be is not the way it is.

The world we have to welcome our saviour into is not one of peace and it is not one of love. It is, however, one of hope. We hope because we have to hope that we can create a better world than the one in which we live. That is what the birth of a tiny baby brought so many years ago and continues to bring for us today. Hope. That is all we have to offer. It is not enough, but it is a start.

Missing the Dance

Returning to my ever present country music obsession, there was a great Garth Brooks song I heard recently that I haven't heard in awhile. It's called "The Dance." I heard it played at a memorial service which was quite perfect. It is a song that talks about what has been lost, but how much it meant.

I have been told that I get into relationships too quickly and don't really think about what I'm doing. Maybe that's true and maybe it's not. But the reality is that I love to dance and I will never turn down the chance to take a spin on the dance floor.

One of my friends, who was in a long term relationship at the time, told me he was envious watching me get into so many new relationships. There's always the glow and the mystery that accompany the beginning of new relationship. It's fun to get to know someone in ways that you hadn't before and it's exciting to not really be sure where something is going to go. I've known this friend since I was two years old so he really has seen the glow of all my beginnings.

At the time he told me this, my last beginning had ended. I realized I was envious of him because he had something that hadn't ended. I was younger then and desperately wanted a relationship that would last. That desire has not gone away, but has simply lost its edge of desperation. I have faith that there will be a beginning without an end. I also know that I can't have that if I decide to stop having beginnings.

The line from the song that struck me most is this. "Now I'm glad I didn't know the way it all would end, the way it all would go. I could have missed the pain, but I'd have had to miss the dance." Perhaps I'm unusual because I will always choose to dance. I know there will be pain at some points, but even if I knew how my beginnings would end, I would have taken the beginnings anyways.

The reason I am so willing to take the chance and step out onto the dance floor is because I know the secret. There will always be starry-eyed, forever-wishing beginnings and there will be a lot of tear filled endings. But the best part is what happens in between. In between the learning of the steps and stepping on some toes and simply wanting to spin apart, there is the chance to really dance and enjoy every second of it.

Most people will agree with me that the fairy tale beginnings of relationships are fantastic and the endings can be horrific. Neither of those are the reason why I keep taking the chance. I keep taking the chance because I really do love to dance. I was just looking for the right partner. Maybe I will take my last dance, for the rest of my life. Maybe I won't. I do know that I won't risk missing out on the dance.

Where Are You Christmas?

I'm sitting in my apartment, looking out the window watching the snow. There are only nine days left until Christmas, but for some reason, it doesn't completely feel like Christmas for me and I don't know why. I've done Christmas concerts and bought presents that are wrapped and waiting under the tree. There is more snow piling up even now. My room is draped in Christmas lights and there is Christmas music playing, but something is missing. I wish I knew what.

There are very few holidays that I am in a relationship and fewer still that I actually get to spend with the significant others who have been a part of my life. I've resigned myself to the fact that I won't be in someone's arms on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day and that there will be no one to kiss me at midnight to ring in the New Year. Those things don't mean that no one cares for me, but that I will physically be alone then. I've made peace with that, so I know that is not effecting my Christmas spirit.

I still have two exams to write, lots of driving and a few rehearsals before I get to celebrate Christmas, but this is also not an unusual occurrence in my life. I am, after all, a musician. Busy just seems to be what the Christmas season is all about. Perhaps that is why I seem to have lost some of the spirit.

I know that I am getting older and my world is changing in many ways. I wish that didn't mean Christmas had to change for me too. I am not the same one I used to be and time has changed me. I am not who I was when I began university almost three years ago and nor do I want to be. I have changed and who I was is not who I am. Who I am is not who I'm going to be. There are aspects of my personality that I will always cling to, mostly my legendary Irish stubbornness that I swear is genetic, but to remain the same is to place on foot in the grave. I have the energy to change and grow and to chase my dreams now. I won't be able to for the rest of my life.

Christmas has changed for me as I have gotten older as well, although I really don't want it to. The season has become the busiest of my life. With the number of services I attend and participate in, the running joke is that I am in training to become clergy. Although I don't think that is a path planned for me, I will always be quite close to that way of life. Even without the many services I am at, there are still parties to attend, people to see, presents to have wrapped under the tree and most especially, cookies to bake. There are days when the extended family will descend on my house and chaos will reign. I am also horrible at relaxing, another genetic trait that I am not sure I will ever entirely let go of.

My wish list has also changed as I have grown older. In place of Barbie dolls and new toys, there are practical things that can and will be used for a long time to come. More important than things for myself, I want the idealist wishes that so many make. World peace, enough food to feed everyone, clean water, justice for those who are pushed aside, a loving home for every child. I realize that Christmas will not bring what my heart desires for those around me, but it does act as a reminder that I must do all that is within my power to ensure the future does hold those things, at least for some.

As the snow falls so beautifully outside of my window, I know there are people living on the street struggling to keep warm. I know that the greatest present some child will receive this year will be enough to eat. I know there are homes where kind words and gentle actions are in short supply, and I know that nothing I can do will ever erase all the hurt they cause. I know there are those who are seen as not good enough by society because they are different and all I do is simply a drop in the ocean. Regardless of how important that drop is to those it touches, it will never be enough for all.

Christmas is not a season of joy for all. It is, however, a season of hope. It comes in the darkest point of the year, when the days are short and the nights are long, to remind us that there is light. For much of the year, the light may seem to be only a glimmer in the distance, but for one month out of the year, people take more time to reach out to those in need around them. There is more joy in the lives of many, although it may be a harried joy. Life does not become perfect by any means. There are still those looking for enough to eat and those struggling to keep warm. There is a reminder though that we are called to reach out to those who are in need and share some of our abundance.

If we were able to treat every day as Christmas, if we were able to be hopeful every day of our lives, if we held Christmas in our hearts, the world would be a better place. Maybe that's where I should look to find the Christmas I so deeply desire. Not in the snow that is falling, or the lights, or the cookies, although those are marvelous parts of the season as well. Maybe the place I need to look is not outside of myself, but inside.

Talking About Forever

Going back to my obsession with country music, there was a great song playing on the radio today. It's a new song by Keith Urban and the lyrics struck me more today than they have over the past few months.

The part of the lyrics that really got to me was this. "We think about tomorrow than it slips away. We talk about forever, but we've only got today." I got a lot of questions today, when I played at a church luncheon at the church I grew up in. Most of them were about what I plan to do when I graduate school. The reality of my life is that I have no idea.

I stopped planning for the future a while ago. A part of this is because my plans just keep changing. I have some idea of what I might want to do, but there are about 138 options. That number is the number of countries that L'arche has communities in. Since that is what I want to do with my life, that is the number of options I have for the place I can live in after graduation. There was a certain amount of shock when I said the Prairies look like the best option for me when I'm done school, but that's a plan I'm looking forward to keeping.

It is really easy to talk about forever, especially when you are my age. Life seems as though it will stretch on and on and on. It doesn't though. I have seen too many people have their paths cut short before they should be and they don't get to see their forevers. They don't get forever, but they did have their todays.

There is another line from another country song that I love. "We can talk about forever for a day or two, but I've still got a lot of leaving left to do." I have to admit that I am pretty sure my leaving is done for my life, but I still only hold with talking about forever for a day or two. Planning for the future is a great thing to do, but the problem comes when you get caught up in planning for the future and talking about what tomorrow holds. I am the queen of planning and organizing and details. It wasn't until those plans began to fall through, the organizing becomes too much and the details were overwhelming that I realized that wasn't good for me. I still do like talking about the future and having dreams for what might happen tomorrow. My dreams tend to have a home in the country, a few kids hanging onto my hands and a man to come home to. Simple, perhaps, but they are my dreams and like all dreams they may come true and they may not.

The reality of my life is today. I am a little bit lonely, but I know that won't last forever. I am still in school and I am sort of employed. I know what job it is that I am going to go back to when classes are over again. I have my music and I have my friends. The reality of my life is that there is nothing more that I really need. I can talk about forever for a long time because I am a planner. I want to know what is going to happen and I want some guarantees in my life. I don't know how many more days I get though. I may have more than enough years to do all that it is I desire to do, but I may not. What I do know is that I have today, right now. That time is what I can use to make a difference in some one's life.

I am perfectly content to talk about forever, but only for a day or two. There is far too much living to do.

Proof of God

"The continued existence of the church is the greatest proof of the existence of God." Courtesy of my wise man.

There are so many days of my life that I am reminded that this is completely true. I have been a member of different churches and different denominations for my entire life. There is very little that changes. There will always be things that seem to combat the existence of the church. These can come in the form of people who always find something wrong with the workings of the church, or those who seek to keep their church exclusive. Not only is this completely counter productive to keeping the church going, but it goes against the main purpose of the church.

It is so easy to get caught up in the idea that the church will always run the way it has run for the past fifty years. This is why the continued existence of the church is the only proof I need that God exists. When an institution decides not to change, then the institution will cease to serve the people who require it. Somehow, despite the resistance to change that I have met in most churches, they have somehow continued to survive. Some of them have even managed to thrive.

It constantly amazes me that churches continue to thrive and serve the people who require them, while so many people are adamant against any amount of change. The reality is that there will always be a different group of people who need to be served and there will have to be changes to adjust to serving in different ways. The change shouldn't always feel like pulling teeth because it's not.

There are many people in the church I grew up in who would love to change some things, and many of them are over the age of 65. Given that that is the median age of the congregation, this is a good thing. The members of the congregation who do not want anything to change, unfortunately, out number those who want things to change. There are not large changes that many of us want to make. They are mostly small things, like the tempo of the music we sing, having more congregational things, more connection within the members of the church. These things are like pulling teeth.

And so I am back to my original statement. The continued existence of the church is absolute proof of the existence of God.

Looks Like Home

I'm back at my parents place for awhile now, studying and generally remembering how to relax. I know that I have written a lot about home and what that means to me. There have been many places in my life that I have been able to call home for various reasons. Some part of me is always looking for a place to call home. I like being home and my current lifestyle means that I cannot always be in the same place to be home. I found an interesting quote that represents my life very well at this point.

"One never reaches home. But where paths that have an affinity for each other intersect, the whole world look like home, for a time." Herman Hesse

The book that quote comes from is a very interesting one. The plot is slightly less enjoyable than many of the books I read with slightly disturbing implications, but it has many really thought provoking concepts, this simply being one of many.

I have found that it is impossible to look for home. You cannot simply will a place to become home for you. When you try and do that, the feeling, the connection to the idea of home is lost. It is also true that you cannot will a place to remain home for you.

It is hard to realize that some places will not remain home for your whole life. For a long time, I thought that my camp would always be a home for me, but the past years of returning have taught me that is not true. There were paths that intersected there for me for a long time, but they have simply moved to another place.

There are many paths in my life, and many of them have reached points of intersection across a variety of locations. Some of them have lost their feeling of home, but many of them haven't. There are many places that look like home and many more that are going to look like home before my journey along my own paths end.

Finding a place that looks like home usually gives me a chance to stop moving for awhile. It's a place to rest and feel safe. What I love more than anything else is to find a place that feels like home. It is not the paths in my life make places feel like home, but the people. There have been many places that have become more like a home because of the people who inhabit them.

I have found a home at the L'arche communities in Richmondhill and London because of the people there who constantly welcome me with open arms, despite the fact that I disappear for long periods of time with little or no contact. I know that I have a home in London with my university friends, mostly because of my wise man who reminds me constantly that if I leave for a long period of time, there will be people who miss me. The home I spent much of my life in will always be a home, even though I really never live there.

Whether it is paths that intersect, or people who truly care for you, sometimes home will remain for a long time and other times it won't. But while it does, don't neglect it. There will never be another place like it.

Lighting a Lamp

This is the season of many lights. Christmas lights are going up and there are more candles than the rest of the year holds. Advent candles and Hanukkah candles are being lit all the time in many different places. This is the season that my pyromaniac housemate enjoys most of all.

I was at a memorial service last night. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting it to be. The end of the service was beautiful though. Everyone has a candle lit. Despite the fact that the room was dark, it wasn't. It was full of light and hope that came from each flame. It was an incredible thing. There was love for those who had been lost and love for those who are left behind.

A friend recently sent me a quote that I really enjoyed. "Perhaps it will seem to you that the sunshine is brighter and that everything has a new charm. At least, I believe this is always the result of a deep love, and it is a beautiful thing. And I believe people who think love prevents one from thinking clearly are wrong; for then one thinks very clearly and is more active than before. And love is something eternal - the aspect may change, but not the essence. There is the same difference in a person before and after he is in love as there is in an unlighted lamp and one that is burning. The lamp was there and it was a good lamp, but now it is shedding light too, and that is its real function. And love makes one calmer about many things, and in that way, one is more fit for one's work." Vincent Van Gogh

A deep love is something incredible. I have been accused in the past of being all lit up because of being in love. And I'm sure that it is true. When you are in love, the sun does seem to shine brighter and the world has a sparkle it used to lack. Things are clearer, although you think that they wouldn't be. Having a great love in your life isn't distracting, it's clarifying. You do more, although you may think it is less. The greatest thing about love is that is never really changes. The object of love may change, but the essence never does.

There is a well known parable in the New Testament about lighting a lamp. No one lights a lamp and then hides it. I take a similar stance on loving. There is no point in loving if you are unwilling to show love and affection. Perhaps that is why I have been accused so often of glowing because I'm in love. I feel more whole and complete, as though I am doing what I am supposed to be when I am all in love and "lit up."

Vincent Van Gogh may have been a crazy guy who cut off his ear, but he was right about this. Candles and lamps remain candles and lamps even when they are not lit. People are still themselves when they are not in love, but they don't glow or exude happiness in the same way that people who love completely do. It is easy to always be happy when all you see in the world is love. There is darkness, there is no denying that, but there is also great light and love in the world. We can ignore it, and be overwhelmed by the darkness, or we can choose the light. We can choose to be the light and live more completely than we were ever able to before.

A Sure Thing

At big family meals, my grandfather has a tradition of always giving his grandchildren who clear the table a tip. The tip has yet to change over the years and it is this. Don't bet on the horses.

After twenty years of hearing that familiar refrain from my grandfather, it has become more of a joke and a comfort that some things will never change. I never thought there would be so much value and wisdom in something that I have grown up hearing.

Gambling is not really a good idea. Especially if it becomes compulsive. I suppose that can be said about anything that rises to the level of obsession, but this has a greater affect on functioning in daily life than perhaps being addicted to drinking coffee. When gambling on horses, many people say that you can bet on a "sure thing." This means that the horse is going to win and you will get a return on your money. The reality is that this doesn't always happen. The idea is there though.

The opposite idea to that is the idea of betting on a "long shot." This means that if, by some miracle, this horse does win, you will get a large return on your money because there will be so many people who have bet against that horse and no one really believes it will win. A sure thing and a long shot are the most basic ideas of betting on anything really, but most easily transcribed into betting on horses for the purposes of this tangent of mine.

For a long time, some people would have described me as a sure thing. I'm the one who has had the goals and the dreams with the drive to make them happen. Being a sure thing, I tended to attract, for the most part, guys who were long shots. They weren't really sure where they were going and it was comforting for them to have someone in their life who wanted to be able to provide a touch of stability.

During those years, I really did want to be a sure thing. I wanted to be the one who had the committed relationship, the life that I could simply step into after graduation with the degrees and skills I needed to pursue my dreams. I wasn't though. Regardless of what those around me thought (domestic being high on the list) I wasn't a sure thing. I have the dreams and the drive, but the dreams changed. A lot. And they continue to change. Maybe that's part of the reality of being a student. Maybe it's simply how life works for those of us who are hitting their quarter life crisis. Our dreams do change and what we have to do to pursue our goals has to change accordingly.

I'm not really sure what I am now. I am less of a long shot than I used to be. I don't know if that makes me a consistent sure thing. I know that I want to be a sure thing. I also know that I can't be that for everyone though. And I can't try. That is fair to no one in my life. I can be a sure thing for someone though. Maybe that's all it takes. One person to take a leap of faith and be willing to believe that I can go from being a long shot to a sure thing. Or maybe I'm destined to remain a long shot who wins by a nose.

For Once In My Life

My mother has done an incredible job raising two daughters. She has taught us both grace and poise, that being loving and kind is more important than being right and that fighting for true justice is always worth it. The one thing that my sister and I have not learned very well is how to stand up for ourselves and be willing to demand what it is that we want. We're good at it when it comes in a family context, such as getting the car for the night, but we appear to be incapable of doing so in the "real world."

There have been very few things in my life that I have been willing to demand. There have been things worth fighting for that I haven't and a few things I should have let go sooner. I don't know if it is simply the fact that I have gotten older and can now fight for what I want simply because I know what I want, or it I am now simply willing to fight. Perhaps it is a little bit of both.

It feels strange, after so many years of having dreams and making plans that only lead to disappointment to stop making specific plans. I've realized that I get hung up on the details and when they fail, I tend to give up on the bigger picture. The reality in life is that the details don't always work and that plans sometimes do fall through. That doesn't mean that someone loves you less, or that they don't care. Life simply is not always big enough to accommodate the details and plans we are determined to press on it. Life is however more than big enough to deal with the important big thing, so long as we do not get caught up in all the details.

I am, admittedly, a detail person. I can very easily get caught up in completing tasks and trying to please everyone. Over the past two years, I have had to learn to let go of some of the details. I can't be everything to everyone and it only hurts me when I try to be. I have begun to see the bigger picture and I'm sure those who have to with me are thankful for that. I still see the details and to a certain extent, they are still important to me. I have learned though, that the details are not what are worth fighting for. I know what is.

For once in my life, not only do I know what I want, but I've found it. And I am willing to fight for it.