2016: A Year Amongst Grace

Another year. Another twelve months of frustrations and sorrows, time wasted and lessons learned, progress and regress. Another year of extraordinary circumstances, all the more remarkable for their ordinariness.

I messaged one of my best friends in the early hours of New Years Day. He replied back with the following benediction: "May the Lord's graces in this last year give us hope for the next."

So many of the Lord's graces are the small ordinary details that we take for granted and easily overlook. But today, I would like to do what I try to do every year: recount the Lord's goodness by listing some of my favourite experiences of the past year. 

My Portland Experience

This summer I returned to Portland and dug even deeper roots amongst that special city. I rented a bike for the week and cycled all over its curving bike paths, across bridges and train tracks. I purchased bags of coffee and stacks of books. I saw Japanese gardens and drank beer in wood panelled corner booths. I attend early morning worship practices and read aloud an essay of mine in a light-strewn backyard concert. I stayed up until 1am eating chicken wings with Liz Vice and Micah Bournes. I interviewed almost every member of The Bible Project team during one whirlwind afternoon. I made friends with Wesley Randolph Eader and his roommate, a talented filmmaker. I interview four different musicians. When it was all over, I returned to Canada via a train that hugged the Pacific coast. It was a dream of a trip. I can't wait to do it again.

Canvas Conference and the Creativity Course

While in Portland, I attended the Canvas Conference and took a graduate-level summer course tackling the subject of Creativity and the Christian. I spent most of the summer registering for the course, reading the fine textbooks, and writing essays. It was a rigorous challenge with many painful moments during which I wondered if, after years of writing for fun, I could actually do it for credit. But I came out the other end with good grades and with my understanding of this, my favourite topic, clarified. It was also an undeniable privilege to sit in the front row of a small classroom asking questions of some of my favourite Christian thinkers and creators.

Calvary Grace Children's Christmas Program

Those who know me know how much I love working with kids. I also love music. And I love creating new things. So when I got to write, direct, and lead my church's Christmas program, I loved every second of it. I did my best to write a sensitive, simple, and powerful script, spent every Sunday on an upright piano surrounded by 25 children practicing the songs, and then had a joy filled evening performing the program with the kids for our church. It was an evening that glowed with grace, one I'll look back with fondness for the rest of my life. I've just learned that making music with these kids will continue into 2017 and I'm thrilled.

Falling in Love with Pencils and Paper

I guess every year I take on a new expensive hobby. Last year it was brewing quality coffee. This year it was exploring the world of Field Notes notebooks and Blackwing pencils. It's a contagious obsession apparently, as I passed the interest on to one of my best friends. "I don't feel too guilty about it" he said. "As a writer, we don't have very many expenses." (But seriously, these notebooks and pencils are such a pleasure to use.)

Successfully Housesitting

I've housesat in past years, but it usually ended in me getting really sick. This year I housesat for over a month and nailed it. I hosted company. I cooked amazing meals. I kept the place (mostly) clean and orderly. I read books, watched movies, went for walks, wrote, and counselled friends. I came away realizing I was ready to live on my own. (Not achieving that goal this year has been an ongoing frustration.)

Joining Christ and Pop Culture Members-Only Forum

There's a website out there called Christ and Pop Culture. I visit it, occasionally. A couple of my online friends told me about how you can pay a couple bucks a month to support it and then they add you to this private forum on Facebook. They told me it was the best forum ever and that it could even change my life. So I payed my money and joined the group and now my friends list has doubled and I'm way, way more savvy about pop-culture. Oh, and it's an astonishing corner of the internet where you can turn to for writing advice, prayer requests, anger venting, and for questions on - really, anything. And it taught me that the people holding differing theological views from me are often people who still love Jesus and are trying to obey the Bible. I wouldn't give it up

Paul Simon Vacation

I went out to the West Coast back in May. It wasn't an epic Hornby vacation, but I did bike all over Victoria, visit tiny wine shops and pubs, purchase (another) stack of books, and enjoy the sea air. And then I went to Vancouver and saw Paul Simon live. Right after the concert Paul told The New York Times that he is taking an extended break from music making. That concert was a dream come true. I'm so glad I made the journey to see it.

Putting into Action Podcast Plans

That's all I can say at the moment. That, and it is going to be epic.

Also.... reading more about metal health and realizing I am not stupid or crazy but really  messed-up and rather beautifully different, using my Apple Music membership to listen to all kinds of different music and discovering R&B is actually wonderful, searching for and (maybe) finding a school for 2017 (stay tuned, no promises!), talking to my pastor and realizing that I can actually enjoy a drink without guilt and then exploring that new world that opened up, and actually really enjoying my work for several months of the year (I really hope this continues into 2017).

So much joy. So many gifts. But this year wasn't all adventure and excitement. There were plenty of days of boredom, confusion, agony, and frustration. And there were many more days of ordinary plodding, of step by step steadiness. The small graces that sustained those days that were the true marvels of 2016. And I know that whatever comes in 2017, that grace and the Hand that this grace comes from will continue.

22

It's my 22nd birthday today, but by now,  the years tick by with less formality. I've traded that  for a heightened sense of time passing quickly. I’m 22 and unequivocally an adult. This life is now the real thing and its urgency is constantly present.

I look back on last year; 365 days of Paul Simon’s sole diamonds and lists of simple beauties, losses, and delights. Winter winds have littered disappointment and like Llewyn Davis, my scarf has been blown by achin’ pain. But my boots were warm and the frustrations and setbacks were matched by moments I've collected and gathered. I’ve been treading water in the shadowlands, but I've seeing the golden light of evening cross my front porch. 

There are many faces throughout this year, a crowd of precious people. They were there to wish me well when I passed by and, if I paused, they shared with me snippets of their world. Then there is my family who have seen the worst but still support and carry me on in love. Mentors have pressed me forward, reminding my of my Father’s love and realigning me when I stray. Dear friends - all the more valuable for the scarcity - in confiding me with their broken failures, give me permission to impart my fears to them. And there are faces whom I’ve grown up with that have become more unexpectedly longed for each time they return into my sphere.

Through it all I’m confronted; brought face to face with my own failings. I realize the depth of selfishness that permeates my soul and how I'm constantly seeking my own pleasure. Everything I long and grasp for is to please myself alone. I doge this honest truth for so much of my waking hours, but then the hard rock of its bold truth tears a hole in the floorboards of my once-so-solid ship. The harsh cold waters of reality then come rushing in and I’m sinking sailor, a quickly drowning man.

But there is life in these dead bones and its vivacity is surly not native to me. Repentance requires repetition - not because its propitiator is finite and its salvation redundant but because I’m in such constant need of repair. Christ, through great consequence to himself, has forgiven me yet I need his Gospel more then ever. Dear Lord, apply it to my soul!

Launching my bark into this year's waters, may You, oh Lord,  be the Harbour to which I flee, the Captain at my helm, and the Spirit in my sails. I’ve been greatly troubled in spirit, but have found my Anchor who sustains. His constance is my only solace, his comfort my lasting cheer. 

Philomena (2013)

his review was originally published in January 2014. Images are from the film and are not my own.

Last week a friend and I watched Philomena, a BBC film about an elderly Irish lady who has kept hidden for 50 years the secret of her pregnancy as a teen. A group of nuns bring her into their abbey to deliver the baby, but in penences for her sin and their medical assistance she is required to work for several years to pay them back and her baby boy is adopted by an American. Fifty years later, Philomonia opens up to her family about her past and her story is told to Martin, a once prestigious journalist who had a falling out with BBC and is now struggling with where to go next in his career. He rather reluctantly picks up the story and accompanies Philomenia on the search of her son.

This is essentially a "human interest story" but it is a brave one, diving into incredibly sensitive subjects, yet uplifted and sustained by the character and humour of its main actors. Judi Dench plays an ordinary person with a dark story of sadness running through her memories like a black cord. It's a testament to the grace given her that the evils she suffered don't inbitter her. Instead she is lovable, kind, and generous in her estimation of others.

The storytelling is not perfect, at times rushing moments that could have been quite moving had they more room to breath. Although the transition into the backstory was a rather creative shot, the rest of the backstory could have been more creatively integrated. Several aspects of the story felt a touch contrived or simplistic, until you realize that it is based on a true story. I wondered out loud if this project had two screenwriters and I was correct.

My response to the story was also complicated by my relationship with the Catholic Church. As an evangelical it was easy to categorize the evils and attitudes we see in the nuns as a Catholic problem. And I couldn't help but notice the lack of repentance or guilt Philomenia had over the orginal affair. It's as if the character herself adopted the stance of the filmmakers.

But to focus on those issues is to miss the point. This is an engaging story driven by powerful characters and their interactions. Especially notable is how this movie contains so many honest conversations betwen the sceptic and the believer. Martin is an atheist and Philominea has kept her Catholic belief. She continues to keep this faith dispite the fact that as the story progress it is her faith, not his, that ought to be tested. Instead of becoming more bitter towards the wrongs that were commited against her she grows in grace, both towards her persecutors and in how she answers her sceptical friend, a true testament of the grace of her redeemer.

And it is ultimately this grace, this forgiveness offered her, that she can extend to her tormentors. And so the simple Irish granny, fond of croutons and tootsie roles, can offer something that the Oxbridge-trained man of this world can not - forgiveness. This forgiveness does not from her, but from Christ,  who's image she places on the tomb of her son.

Yes, this film is not perfect. Yet even the stories we tell, something as inconsequential as the cheap romance stories that Philomena reads, have wisdom. And, like this story, they can reflect the truth and beauty of the Story-weever himself onto the plain face of his bride. "And I never saw that coming!"