Mark Day...

What a night we had last night! In case you didn't know, yesterday (April 25) was St. Mark's day. Now, I've never celebrated this before, but living next door to an Italian does this to you. She told us a while ago that it is traditional in Italy to celebrate your 'name day', and we made a start last year for Tim. We decided that Mark Day should be the first day of the barbeque year, and preparations were made. The weather looked decidedly dicey all day, and in the afternoon the rains came, but by the time I got home from work it was rather warm. Very sunny, in fact.

We made burgers and vegetable kebabs with Japanese sauce. We grilled sausages and big pork chops. There was rice salad, tomato salad, homemade salsa for dipping, homemade cheesy garlic bread, stir fry and roasted potatoes. It was a feast. We were joined by a number of good friends (who can be seen in the picture above), and all in all we had an excellent time. I couldn't recommend a name day barbeque more.

After the food was polished off, and we could eat no more, the party headed to the village green, where we played a little Fricket. This game is a combination of Frisbee and cricket. The 'bowler' throws the disc as hard as he can at the 'batter'. The batter must try to catch the disc with one hand, and without moving their feet. If they achieve this, they must throw the disc as far as possible, and run between the wickets as many times as they can before the bowler taps the wicket with the disc. If the batter's throw is caught, the batter is out. It's a great game. Before too long, though, bad light stopped play, and we headed in for cribbage and Fluxx. A good night all in all.

Things were soured slightly this morning, however. In my rush to get into the house from the supermarket last night in order to get on with the cooking, I left the front panel on my car stereo. Hence, when I went to the car to go to work today, I found a big screwdriver hole in my passenger door, and nothing but a bunch of wires in the slot where my stereo used to be. That's the third break in I've had since September. It's getting a little silly now. I only just had the hole in the door repaired from the last time they got in (when they took nothing; just had a look around), and it wasn't cheap. I think I'm going to patch it up with duct tape this time.

Not to worry. My cd player was slightly dodgy anyway. The lights on the display panel all stayed switched on constantly, so you couldn't read it, and it was not in the habit of playing discs that were burned on my computer. I was looking for an excuse to replace it.

Still, all this gives me a reminder of scripture. Just like the person that took my stereo, Jesus is going to come like a thief in the night. If I had have remembered to take the front panel off my cd player, they would have walked past, and there wouldn't have been a problem. Because I didn't prepare for the possibility of the thief, I was caught out.
When Jesus comes, he's not going to steal from you - he's coming to give life. But only to those that are prepared. Have you remembered to take the front off your stereo, or are you risking gettting caught out?

Fresher Wind...

It's been five years since I first came to Canada. Did I say that already? This year was my third Freshwind, and by far the best yet. I think there were several things that contributed to this. Firstly, even though Delirious played, the guys from the church did most of the stuff. In previous years, there's been a bunch of different bands from outside of TACF, and most of the speakers have been from elsewhere too. This year, the Youth Network band played just as much as Delirious, and the only outside speaker was Cleetus Adrian (who was awesome, by the way). It was really refreshing to see it acknowledged that you don't need someone famous to come in order to see a move of the Holy Spirit.
I think another reason for the high quality of this year's conference was summed up perfectly by Jacob when he said that in previous years, he's been really excited for Freshwind to arrive, because he he loves big events. This year, he found that he was more excited for it to be over, because he feels that the big events are the regular, weekly cell meetings and Sunday evenings at Central. Even though I'm not usually around, and I don't have a constant experience of this, what he said really spoke to me because I feel in my heart that conferences should only be a bigger version of what we normally do. By this, I don't mean that we should feel the presence of God more, it's just that there are going to be more people there. Like Jacob, I'm more excited now because of Freshwind than I was for Freshwind.

At the end of the conference, Duncan asked his cell group up on stage. Then he invited me to go up there too, and told everyone that I would be joining them when I move over here in January. He had already suggested that this would be the case to me, but I guess there's no going back now. It was just another example of how everyone here is making me feel so at home.

This poses something of a problem, though. I don't want to go back. I know that I always want to stay, and that it's no surprise that I don't want to leave Bethany behind again, but this time is the strongest I've ever felt it. My heart is in this city, in more ways than one. I love the place. I know that I'm meant to be here, and it's so frustrating to remember that in a few short days I have to leave again, and that I won't be back for three months. I have family here now (well, nearly), friends, a GREAT church, my fiancee... I know that I have all these things back in the UK (except Bethany, of course), and I love everything about it, but something is making me want to be here even more. I guess I'm a bit like a kid that wants a new toy. The old ones I have are ok, but nothing will match up to the features of the new model.

So, as I prepare to leave, I think I'm looking for the way in which this visit will have impacted my life the most. I don't really want to leave, and I think that's because I know what lies ahead here for me. I'm starting to think of the next few months in England as a sort of Freshwind of my life. It's not going to be the big event, I know that, but it's setting me up for the big event that is to come. I'm going to feel a huge presence of the Holy Spirit, and I'm going to see God do some incredible things in my life, but it's really just preparing me for the awesome (and I use that word in it's correct context here) things that he'll do in my future. That's pretty exciting, actually...

Canadian weather...

Well, here I am in Canada again. I love this place, but I don't need to tell you that; you almost certainly know already. If you didn't know already, then you do now. As ever, it's been pretty manic so far. Bethany is working quite a lot, so we're grabbing every spare minute together, and when she's actually at work, I've been catching up with a lot of friends. It's pretty awesome that my friend Joel is in town this week too, as I never expected to see him. Jacob was at band practice on Monday night, getting ready for Freshwind, so Joel and I went outside, and talked at length about what we've both been up to for the last year, and what the next year holds. He gave me some pretty good advice, too. And there was praying. It was excellent.

I also hooked up with my friend Becky on Sunday night. Becky goes to the same church as me in Leeds, and she's over this side of the Atlantic visiting family. she joined us at TACF central, and that was pretty sweet. It's great to feel at home at that church. Last time I made it down, it was in October, and it was pretty new. I didn't know a lot of people there, and it was in an unfamiliar building. Just before the service, I'd met with Bethany in a coffee shop to try to persuade her that our relationship was worth pursuing. The jury was still out on that one, so I was in a bit of a wierd mood. I said to Andrew G afterwards that I knew that Central would feel like home sometime, but right now, it was a little awkward. As I suspected, this time was a whole new experience. I'm seriously excited to become a member of the church when I move here in January.

I'm stuck inside right now, which is why I finally have time to blog. There's a pretty good thunderstorm going on out there at the moment, and Bethany's at work. Jacob should be over in about an hour, and I'm going to cook up some steak. Then we're going to go meet my wonderful fiancee from work, and catch a movie. Life is so chilled out for me while I'm here, and whilst I'm doing planning for next term at school, there's not an awful lot for me to do that's actually pressing. I've found myself wondering how different life here will feel when it's actually my home, and I have a job, and a WIFE. I'm excited by all of that, but I don't really know what to expect. My only real experience of the country is one of relaxation, and I know that's not always going to be the case when I build a life here. Any thoughts on that?

There's plenty more to report, I just don't have the motivation to type any more right now. I'll get back to you in a couple of days...

Countdown...

I finally caved in on Wednesday night. Having read Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz, I packed my pipe with a particularly tasty blend of tobacco, and set out from the house. I'd been working on a report for school all night, so by ten pm I was more than ready for a break from the glare of the computer screen, and a bit of fresh air.
I took a stroll to the Co-Op on Cardigan Road. It was a pleasant evening, and I knew exactly what I was going to do. Once I arrived, I sat up on the wall out the front of the car park, and stoked up the contents of the pipe's bowl. I prayed for Burley and Hyde Park, my home for the last five years. I love the place, you know? I love the people, the houses, the shops. I love the parks and the graffiti and the communities that intertwine.

I have been thinking about what I love about Burley for some time, but I was never able to articulate it until I spoke to Tim the other day. We were looking at the possibilities for the artwork for The Salvator Darlings' forthcoming mini-album, Sorry it's so Short, I'm Quite Tired, and Tim asked me what it was that I wanted to convey with the cover image. I found it quite hard to put into words at first, but once I started, there was no stopping me.

What I realised I loved more than anything, was the mixture of the static with the ever-changing. The fact is that most people that live in the area now are students. The majority of them stay for a maximum of two years. Without wanting to generalise, most of them don't give a crap about the state of the place, because they're renting the living space, they know that they're going to be leaving shortly, and, to be frank, most of them are too concerned with partying to think about cleaning up the place.

I'll give you an example: Some guys on my road, a couple of years back, decided that they wanted to sit outside on a warm summer's evening. To facilitate this, they took the sofa and chairs out of their living room and put them in the middle of the street. My sister came to visit that night, and she found it hard to manoveur the car around them; they shouted insults at her for her inability to park. They drank into the night, and left the furniture outside. As it is wont to do in England, it rained that night, and the seats were ruined. Rather than dispose of them properly, they took them to the end of the road, and tipped them over the railing into the park. I know because when I went to the park the next day, I had to step around them.
This is an extreme example, but my point remains the same. Last summer, I was enjoying the sunshine after work, sat out on the park at the end of my road (the one that had the sofa in it). I watched as a group of students picked up their belongings and left. They discarded empty pop bottles, crisp packets, magazines etc, and just went. There are two bins on the path out of the park, but they just left the litter there. Shortly afterwards, an old man came round the park with a plastic carrier bag. He went around and picked up all the junk that people had left behind, and placed it in a bin. He wasn't employed by the park or anything, he was just a local resident that wanted his neighbourhood to look clean. This guy had probably lived in Burley his whole life, and now, just to keep things looking good, he felt like he had to go round and pick up the mess that these students leave behind. These people that move in for a year, make a lot of noise, leave crap around the place, then disappear again. No wonder that the locals don't think much to students.

All of this is somewhat off my original point, but you'll see where I was going with it. Amidst all the chaos of the area, the houses remain static. The picture at the top of this post was taken just around the corner from my house. Most of the houses here are late Victorian red brick terraces. They are what I consider to be incredibly beautiful buildings, and they have all stood here for more than 100 years.
I know that I have only lived here for a few years, but even so, I feel like I am more of a resident than many people in the area. With the exception of Tim, I have never lived next to the same person for more than a year since I have been here. I have watched the people change around me. These houses, despite all of the attic conversions, walls knocked down, walls built, attrocious UPVC double glazing installations and basement conversions that they have encountered, are still standing.

I am about to start the application process for my right to live and work in Canada. I intend to move there in eight months. So, as I sat on the wall outside the Co-Op smoking my pipe, I thought about what it meant to be leaving this, the only place that I have been able to call my own home. I love it, and yet, like all the other young people that live in the area, I plan to leave it for somewhere better.

These houses have been here much longer than I have; much longer than I have been alive. They aren't going anywhere. And, if Bethany and I happen to come back here, they'll still be there. I guess that what I'm trying to say, in a very elaborate way, is that I am rather like one of these students that moves in for a very short period of time. Compared to the whole of existence, I'm not around on this planet for very long at all. God is a constant; much more so than this house that I'm sat in typing this. Much more so than anything else that has ever been, or ever will be.

I crave consistency. My life sometimes seems to run so fast, and I have so much on, that I don't know whether I'm coming or going. Right now, I'm training to teach, planning a wedding, applying to move to Canada and putting the finshitng touches to an album. It's a lot of stuff to be doing, and I know that there's many more changes ahead. In less than a year, I'll be married, living in a country that I have never visited for more than a month at a time. But in all of that, I have a constant, static God, who I can always rely on to be the same. You can't get more constant than that.

Love.