COVERED IN DOG HAIR AND GRACE

Some holiday highlights, chosen especially for mom and dad.

A POEM

I was introduced to a new friend in a book this week: Anne Sexton, an American poet (1928-1974). Her book, The Awful Rowing Toward God, met me at just the right place. Here is a poem with whiffs of Advent:

THE EARTH
by Anne Sexton

God loafs around heaven,
without a shape
but He would like to smoke His cigar
or bite His fingernails
and so forth

God owns heaven
but He craves the earth,
the earth with its little sleepy caves,
its bird resting at the kitchen window,
even its murders lined up like broken chairs,
even its writers dipping into their souls
with jackhammers,
even its hucksters selling their animals
for gold,
even its babies sniffing for their music,
the farm house, white as a bone,
sitting in the lap of its corn,
even the statue holding up its widowed life,
even the ocean with its cupful of students,
but most of all He envies the bodies,
He who has no body.

The eyes, opening and shutting like keyholes
and never forgetting, recording by thousands,
the skull with its brains like eels --
the tablet of the world --
the bones and their joints
that build and break for any trick,
the genitals,
the ballast of the eternal,
and the heart, of course,
that swallows the tides
and spits them out cleansed.

He does not envy the soul so much.
He is all soul
but He would like to house it in a body
and come down
and give it a bath
now and then.

POMEGRANATE

I want to live
the way
I eat pomegranates
in season

Attentive to each squirting seed
Fingers engaged and messy
Each little bite is
saving me

RUNNING BACK INTO MY OWN SKIN

I ran today
The sky was folded up in greys and mute blues
I think God was speaking to me
through the woman
walking her dog:
“Good girl. You are a good girl. You are doing so well.”

I JUST HAVE TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE PARTY AT MY HOUSE

Tonight my FUSE group, a small group of grade 6 girls, came over to my house. We squished a wackload of fun into a couple of hours: baking cookies, eating nachos, wild dancing, and even a rousing game of hide-n-seek. I am in awe of the freedom that comes when people feel safe . . . loved/liked . . . enjoyed. Aren't we beautiful (and utterly silly)? Love it.

If You Like Music Like I Like Music

Get your lovely, listening ears over to these two concerts on NPR's All Songs Considered:

1. Nickel Creek
2. Josh Ritter

So stinking great.
You can also get them in peerless podcast presentation.

Hello? Comments? Anyone?

That's right, it's time for the Bobbi blog roll call.
Are you reading this thing?
Then say hello.
I have no idea who's reading this thing.
If you read my little blog, please shout "Here!"

Trash Talk

This afternoon I made an oath between me and the earth.

I was making my way up the last hill on my return from a sunny Fall run. It was not one of my finest running hours, but it was time spent outside -- brightening, connecting, mind-wondering time with myself.

Since the outside workers strike this summer in the city of Vancouver, garbage has crept far, far away from trash cans and can’t seem to find it’s way back home. And, now that Halloween trick-or-treaters have wandered through the neighborhoods there are little Lay’s chip bags and Coffee Crisp wrappers everywhere.

Mess has always equaled stress to me, so I decided to start picking some of it up. I’ve resolved to pick up 1 piece of garbage every time I go outside. But there is something noteworthy about picking up one piece of litter: once you start, you can’t stop. This, and it seems like just the right thing to do.

I’ve been thinking about “the right thing to do” since listening to a Jean Vanier interview with Shelagh Rogers of Sounds Like Canada (CBC radio 1). Vanier said, “I am somebody who does something because I feel it is right. But there is no plan. It is just that it is right and that is what I will do.” He talks about the beginning of L’Arche. L’Arche is a community, now all over the world, of people living together in community with people with developmental disabilities. He said that as he began by living with just two people with disabilities he had no idea he was sitting on a gold mine. Vanier is a large voice of peace and hope in our world, and it seems that this action is linked to simply doing the right thing.

Our actions of goodness, though they might be small and seem insignificant, may one day grow legs on their own and walk about spreading peace and beauty all over the place. I want to be a part of a movement like this, even if, for today, it just means I’ll pick up a few pieces of trash in my East Vancouver neighborhood.

Look Out World

Here comes Captain Hygiene!

For our Halloween youth event on Friday I dressed up like Captain Hygiene. My costume was inspired by the preteens I work with and my love for all things clean. One of my lovely sponsors, Emma, dressed up like . . . me! I didn't get it right away, though. I squished by her on our crowded bus and read the pink heart on her grey long-sleeved tshirt. It said, "I heart CBC." I thought, "That's funny. I love the CBC." Then, I got it.

"And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower" (Walt Whitman)

Things I loved about my evening run in the cool rain:
1. The colours of the fallen leaves carpeting the sidewalk.
2. The squish squish sound of my wet, well worn runners as my healthy body moves at its own pace on top of the earth.
3. The glory of the light bursting out of the thick gray atmosphere to say, “Surprise! I really am this beautiful.”
4. The feeling of my own strength as I run.
5. The spaciousness of the city when it rains. People are hiding and the prairie girl in me breathes in this openness. The park is all mine, except for the lover couple under the umbrella and the girl with the jumpy dog and yellow boots (the girl’s boots, that is).

Turkey Trot

My mom and sister came to Vancouver for Thanksgiving. Amazingly, they let me sign them up for the 9th annual Granville Island Turkey Trot - a 10 K race here in Vancouver. I say that it is amazing because NONE of us are runners/racers/athletes. We do love each other, though, so when I expressed interest in this event my lovely mom and sister joined right in (well, Kasha took a little convincing).

It was a beautiful day. There was so much to be thankful for: the changing colours of fall, the water of the sea in the inlet, the presence of friends (Paulina who ran at my slow pace), the diversity of the runners/walkers, our health, the red Puma Turkey Trot shirts, and the fact that it did not pour rain on our grateful heads.

I ALMOST BROKE UP WITH GREY'S ANATOMY . . . UNTIL . . .

"I don't watch a lot of TV."

I know a lot of people like to say that to appear smarter or less lazy, but I truly only find time for The National, The Hour, and usually one show a week. I also like to sound smart and less lazy.

Last year my chosen show was Grey's Anatomy. I wouldn't even say that I chose it, really. I felt chosen by it. I savored the moments of messy humanity in all it's dramatic splendor. The season ended lame, though, so we broke up.

This week I tuned into the new season (oh, and last week, too) and I am momentarily glad we are keeping up our relationship. The theme of this week's episode was addictions -- how people hold onto them even when they know they are destructive, how people develop them from places of real need, how even when we know we should flea with all our energy we don't because it hurts a little less to go back even just once. The various story lines didn't end all solved and tidy, either. I guess that's a bit like the struggle. Plus, those TV people are smart buggers who keep people like me coming back for more.

There is one more theme I liked about this week's episode. The people who dispensed wisdom were the most unlikely. Burke's "ma ma" pointed out some of the most beautiful traits in the people who crossed her path, even those people the viewer could have seen as her adversaries. McSteamy (oh ya) took a moment to check in with Callie as she came close to slipping off the edge of control. And, on it went.

I love sneaky wisdom like this. It is the kind that hides behind an ugly, falling-down fence and then saddles up beside you on a lonely walk to remind you of how the world is or how it should be, anyway.

Slimed

There are days that end well and days when I feel like I'm just scraping the slime off. Here's what I mean.

Days can start off so pleasantly. The sun can reach into the window to greet you. Coffee is prayer in a potter's cup. Sounds of the house say that everyone is home and about to greet the day, too. We are all greeting new days together, though there are some walls that separate us.

But as the day unfolds and we dance around in it (or just shuffle through) some slime can get dumped all over us. This slime can be bits of peoples' ideas of life that squish life down to something so trivial when the whole time we're trying so hard to trace the Spirit. The slime can come in the form of self-imposed laws that we're trading in for full life and love. The slime can come in arrogant ideas that make other people out to be wrong and what's worse, less.

I'm finding ways to scrape off the slime, though. There is so much life to live and my mystic soul is catching it's breath through CBC radio which always reminds me that there is a big world out there, through the music of Romantica and Josh Ritter whose songs soar of this real life, and through new friends met after a wonderful film viewing at Regent.

There is grace upon grace.

Enter Fall

My friend Paulina and I rode our bikes at the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve on this beautiful fall-like day.



I am drinking more Earl Grey tea.
My nose is cold when I fall asleep at night with my window open a bit.
I am wearing sweaters, shoes and socks.
I am running farther than I've ever ran before.
I am signed up to run my first race (for fun): the Turkey Trot.
The tree outside my house is all ablaze in red.

Ahhhh . . . autumn.

I Heart Music

These are some of the songs I keep playing over and over and over and over . . .

1. Patty Griffin - Mother of God
2. Caedmon's Call - I Just Don't Want Coffee
3. Over the Rhine - Trouble
4. Luke Doucet - Broken One
5. Ryan Adams - Two

Chop the Squawking Chicken's Head Off

I used to be a chicken. Especially when I was a kid. The truth is that things still scare me, especially if they require the qualities of physical prowess, grand coordination, or sporty skillfulness.

On Friday, our Student Ministries team went up Grouse Mountain on the gondola for a team lunch. This is a picture that my friend Jenni took when I wasn't looking (obviously).


Jenni called this picture "contemplative Bobbi." It's true. I was contemplating another way of getting up the mountain: the Grouse Grind. I was thinking about how much this rigorous/2.9km-straight-up/853-meter-gain hike scared me.

I have had a few people this summer tell me that I should do the Grind. I mostly dismissed this urging because I don't really trust my body to accomplish such feats. I trust my soul to move towards beauty and truth. I trust my mind to think the best of people and to keep learning. I trust my emotions to sort themselves out and to guide me in fully living. But trust my body to climb up a mountain? I'm too chicken.

As I left the mountain later on Friday, I subdued the squawking chicken in me and decided to do the Grind sooner than later. THANKFULLY, my kind roommate told me she would do it with me . . . the very next day. I find this helps with moments of squawking chicken - the sooner one chops its head off the better. Just kill the chicken and see how things go.

Yesterday Angie and I did the Grouse Grind and not only did I make it up, I did better than I thought I would. I was well in the range of the average climbers' time (just over an hour and a half), and I am not cursing my body for being stiff and sore today.

Birthday Love Overfloweth

My friend Tanner, whom I've known since grade 2, is having a big birthday this weekend. I knew I wanted to do something super nice for him, but my creative birthday ideas bank was coming up short.

Until CBC rescued me!

Last week I was reminded by CBC radio 1 that Blue Rodeo was going to be in town playing two concerts at Malkin Bowl at Stanley Park. It just so happens that Tanner LOVES Blue Rodeo. I snagged a couple tickets from a friend who had extras and off we went on Saturday night.

It was a delight. And the delight did not end there.

My good friend Tanner spread the birthday gift love by calling his dad and connecting with him from the show. It was beautiful: a special father/son moment across a few provinces.

The State of California in My Heart

One of the highlights of this summer was my weekend in Seattle. It was a happy reunion with friends from California that either live in WA now, came up for a wedding that weekend, or came up just to see me (and maybe hit up a baseball game, too). It got me thinking about my time spent living in the SF Bay Area. My California experience still follows me around and reveals things to me about myself, people, the Divine, and the search for home.

Though my time in California was often overwhelming, stretching, heartbreaking, and completely too big for my prairie britches, it was also a time when I felt incredibly loved, was allowed to grow up into myself and into the world, and that gifted me with some of my most favourite friends. The weekend I spent with these friends was like a hot cup of hot chocolate or the feeling I have just after I brush my teeth - mmmmm sooooo good.

Rebellion

I hate summer clothes. Hate, hate, hate them. Today I stuck it to summer and bought a new black sweater. Ooooohhhh, lovely new black sweater.

Sun

Every day at twilight, when the sky isn't overcrowded with grey, the sun comes to visit my East Van space (which I share with my dear friend Angie). The room takes on hundreds of new hues. It soothes away the shakes of anxiety, the throbs of doubt, and the listlessness of fear. I continuously grasp for moments that comfort me with a sense of home and belonging. The sun light at the close of this day, bouncing around this gentle place, is grace to me.