Save our trees!
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Marginal Living
The following article hit news stands today. Ironically, though the piece is about a slower pace of life and living, I wrote it last minute before deadline and my editor fixed it up while in the early stages of child labor. Enjoy!
The day, as it where, is broken down into many different little segments of time. Some call these segments seconds, minutes, and hours while others prefer to use more general terms such as dawn, morning, afternoon, evening, night, and bed to describe their day. Either way, these various parts of the day have a tendency to fill up very quickly with things like commutes, appointments, errands, home renovations, a second job, night school, and even the rare visit to the gym. There just never seems to be enough time!
I do most of my living in the balanced part of the day; nothing extreme. I rarely stay up when the schedule says bed and I even more rarely get up when the schedule says dawn. My mornings generally belong to breakfast and newspapers, afternoons belong to noise and appointments, and evenings belong to wrestling with my son, Seinfeld re-runs, rock climbing with friends, and reading books with few pages, large print, and even larger margins.
Actually, if you were to browse through my library you would find that the margins of most of my books are written in, drawn or doodled on, in order to highlight the noteworthy bits of the book; I use the margins of my books to highlight the content.
I love margins. They are the spaces around the content which, when re-read, generally contain the most significant parts. Likewise, I’ve found that the slower I live and the more margins I build into my day and life, the more likely it is that I am able to really notice what the content of life is saying. I am more attuned to my wife and son; I am more productive at work; I respond more honestly to injustice; I am able to notice things like a sad face in the coffee shop or a co-worker who’s had a difficult week at home. Instead of merely tasking my way through life at a frantic and unsustainable pace, I am able to slowly explore and discover what life looks like at a slower pace, in rhythm, and with margins.
In fact, I think that as one reads Scripture, there is a theme of “margins” that pops up time and again and which should orient the way we live, know, and see. Psalms 46:10 reminds us, “Be still and know that I am God.” We are to have a perspective of living biblically called “Sabbath”; the ability to find rest even amidst the commotion and busyness of life. Further, while this orientation of slow living certainly includes rest and refreshment, it is also intricately connected to a rhythmic lifestyle of working, feasting, and partying. Sabbath is much more than a particular day or time; it is a way of living.
How do you live? Are you living slow enough to care about the things you care about? Are you tuned in to the people around you; your family, friends, and strangers? Have you allowed for the time and space in your life – the margins – where you are able to truly, honestly, and significantly live? What are the margins in your life highlighting?
The day, as it where, is broken down into many different little segments of time. Some call these segments seconds, minutes, and hours while others prefer to use more general terms such as dawn, morning, afternoon, evening, night, and bed to describe their day. Either way, these various parts of the day have a tendency to fill up very quickly with things like commutes, appointments, errands, home renovations, a second job, night school, and even the rare visit to the gym. There just never seems to be enough time!
I do most of my living in the balanced part of the day; nothing extreme. I rarely stay up when the schedule says bed and I even more rarely get up when the schedule says dawn. My mornings generally belong to breakfast and newspapers, afternoons belong to noise and appointments, and evenings belong to wrestling with my son, Seinfeld re-runs, rock climbing with friends, and reading books with few pages, large print, and even larger margins.
Actually, if you were to browse through my library you would find that the margins of most of my books are written in, drawn or doodled on, in order to highlight the noteworthy bits of the book; I use the margins of my books to highlight the content.
I love margins. They are the spaces around the content which, when re-read, generally contain the most significant parts. Likewise, I’ve found that the slower I live and the more margins I build into my day and life, the more likely it is that I am able to really notice what the content of life is saying. I am more attuned to my wife and son; I am more productive at work; I respond more honestly to injustice; I am able to notice things like a sad face in the coffee shop or a co-worker who’s had a difficult week at home. Instead of merely tasking my way through life at a frantic and unsustainable pace, I am able to slowly explore and discover what life looks like at a slower pace, in rhythm, and with margins.
In fact, I think that as one reads Scripture, there is a theme of “margins” that pops up time and again and which should orient the way we live, know, and see. Psalms 46:10 reminds us, “Be still and know that I am God.” We are to have a perspective of living biblically called “Sabbath”; the ability to find rest even amidst the commotion and busyness of life. Further, while this orientation of slow living certainly includes rest and refreshment, it is also intricately connected to a rhythmic lifestyle of working, feasting, and partying. Sabbath is much more than a particular day or time; it is a way of living.
How do you live? Are you living slow enough to care about the things you care about? Are you tuned in to the people around you; your family, friends, and strangers? Have you allowed for the time and space in your life – the margins – where you are able to truly, honestly, and significantly live? What are the margins in your life highlighting?
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Welcome to Vancouver! Winter Olympics 2010
If you've ever wanted to see Vancouver from the air without leaving the captains seat at your desk, this is the way to do it!! Check it out, very cool.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The Saints Are Coming
The Green Day and U2 collaboration of "The Saints are Coming" at the re-opening of the Superdome in New Orleans. It kind of reminds me of what the party might have been like at the end of Ezra 3. Enjoy!
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Fraser Valley Bouldering:: Hunter Creek Access Issues
Please follow this link for a quick update about access issues at the Fraser Valley's premiere bouldering area: Hunter Creek. Thanks for doing your part in keeping this area clean and accessible.
Nate Woods on Prawn V6
Nate Woods on Prawn V6
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Friday, December 18, 2009
Christmas Cheers!
Christmas is an interesting and exciting time of the year that allows us to take a foggy look into the cluttered soul of Canadian culture. Largely, we live our lives day-in and day-out in the constant pursuit of more things; more vacation days, more energy consumed, more events experienced. It is of little wonder then that, when we celebrate a holiday – such as Christmas – that holiday becomes somewhat of a hyperbole of how we already live.
And so, in my own mad rush to get out of the office, through security, and into a climate too cold for human survival, I give you my all-too-quick commentary on Christmas drink, food, tradition, consumption, and Jesus.
Attitudes towards Christmas food and drink are often at odds with each other. On one hand, we rightly applaud the many volunteers of the Operation Red Nose campaign for keeping the eggnog and rum off the road. On the other hand, we sing songs that include phrases like “Oh, bring us a figgy pudding…and a cup of good cheer/We won’t go until we get some, so bring some out here.” In other words, nobody is planning to leave the party until they’ve had their fill of “Christmas cheer,” which, in all likelihood, is referring to a cup of Christmas beer, as opposed to a cup full of Christmas good times.
On the topic of alcohol, while many churches and pastors condemn the over-indulgence of holiday spirits, it is also not uncommon for these same people to eat until they could actually fill out that big jolly red suit. While gym memberships and bottle recyclers make a fortune in January, excess of both food and drink are explicitly condemned throughout Christian Scripture. In the church, well-mixed hops get the evil-eye and the roasted turkey gets a feast. Why is this?
Most feasts, by the way, are meant to be shared with our families and loved ones. Yet the extra hours and stress spent at work, so that we can somehow manage to pay the over-inflated Christmas prices, are, at best, taken out on our families in the form of fighting, dysfunction, and all around Grinchyness. Unfortunately, for our homes and families, the turkey isn’t the only one to be feathered and skinned by our rush for consumption during the holiday season.
Some of our traditions, though currently fueled by our culture’s materialism and greed, originated out of motivations that are hard to criticize. One legend holds that St. Nicholas Bishop of Myra, of whom we get the modern-day Santa Claus Bishop of the North Pole, paid the dowries of young girls who were in danger of being sold into slavery and prostitution. Of course, this issue is an ever present reality that continues to need the immediate attention of modern day saints and sinners alike.
I suspect that St. Nick might have been on to something here; I suspect that maybe he had learned to live a life that was slow enough, observant enough, and uncluttered enough to engage in the hurt and need around him on a regular basis. I suspect that, for him, the celebration of Christmas wasn’t characterized by the rest of his life, rather the rest of his life was characterized by the reality of Christmas; Emanuel, God with us.
Singer, songwriter, and author Michael Card says it this way, “The celebration of the birth of Jesus should be ever new, however; the scenery of Christmas has become too familiar and comfortable. It blocks our view into the depth of the stark mystery of it all…Perhaps the reason so many of us find it difficult to celebrate the birthday of Jesus is that we have confined the celebration, in many ways, to a single day… and, at that, a day that’s become more cluttered than any other day of the year, a day that better represents the noise and business of all our other days.”
Merry Christmas!
And so, in my own mad rush to get out of the office, through security, and into a climate too cold for human survival, I give you my all-too-quick commentary on Christmas drink, food, tradition, consumption, and Jesus.
Attitudes towards Christmas food and drink are often at odds with each other. On one hand, we rightly applaud the many volunteers of the Operation Red Nose campaign for keeping the eggnog and rum off the road. On the other hand, we sing songs that include phrases like “Oh, bring us a figgy pudding…and a cup of good cheer/We won’t go until we get some, so bring some out here.” In other words, nobody is planning to leave the party until they’ve had their fill of “Christmas cheer,” which, in all likelihood, is referring to a cup of Christmas beer, as opposed to a cup full of Christmas good times.
On the topic of alcohol, while many churches and pastors condemn the over-indulgence of holiday spirits, it is also not uncommon for these same people to eat until they could actually fill out that big jolly red suit. While gym memberships and bottle recyclers make a fortune in January, excess of both food and drink are explicitly condemned throughout Christian Scripture. In the church, well-mixed hops get the evil-eye and the roasted turkey gets a feast. Why is this?
Most feasts, by the way, are meant to be shared with our families and loved ones. Yet the extra hours and stress spent at work, so that we can somehow manage to pay the over-inflated Christmas prices, are, at best, taken out on our families in the form of fighting, dysfunction, and all around Grinchyness. Unfortunately, for our homes and families, the turkey isn’t the only one to be feathered and skinned by our rush for consumption during the holiday season.
Some of our traditions, though currently fueled by our culture’s materialism and greed, originated out of motivations that are hard to criticize. One legend holds that St. Nicholas Bishop of Myra, of whom we get the modern-day Santa Claus Bishop of the North Pole, paid the dowries of young girls who were in danger of being sold into slavery and prostitution. Of course, this issue is an ever present reality that continues to need the immediate attention of modern day saints and sinners alike.
I suspect that St. Nick might have been on to something here; I suspect that maybe he had learned to live a life that was slow enough, observant enough, and uncluttered enough to engage in the hurt and need around him on a regular basis. I suspect that, for him, the celebration of Christmas wasn’t characterized by the rest of his life, rather the rest of his life was characterized by the reality of Christmas; Emanuel, God with us.
Singer, songwriter, and author Michael Card says it this way, “The celebration of the birth of Jesus should be ever new, however; the scenery of Christmas has become too familiar and comfortable. It blocks our view into the depth of the stark mystery of it all…Perhaps the reason so many of us find it difficult to celebrate the birthday of Jesus is that we have confined the celebration, in many ways, to a single day… and, at that, a day that’s become more cluttered than any other day of the year, a day that better represents the noise and business of all our other days.”
Merry Christmas!
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Squamish Bouldering: It's About Time V5
It's about time! Frig.
More from this day of bouldering @ the 6th Session.
It's About Time (V5 Variation) from Trevor Edwards on Vimeo.
More from this day of bouldering @ the 6th Session.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Books: Indian Creek Chronicles
A number of years ago while on a winter climbing trip in Joshua Tree, CA, Candace and I met and befriended a lone-traveler/climber from somewhere in the southeast. Georgia maybe. His deep drawl and funny words attracted us to him and we soon found ourselves climbing, eating, hiking, and remembering together. Eventually, as we each told our stories, we learned that he was on a quest into the wild with hopes of "finding himself." The inspiration for his trip came out of three things: 1) confusion about life, 2) a book titled Wild at Heart, and 3) a different book titled Indian Creek Chronicles.
At the time, I had just finished reading Donald Miller's book, Through Painted Deserts, and, having the book with me, we traded. He, for my Donald Miller book, and I for his Indian Creek Chronicles.
Fast-forward.
Today, after years of this book sitting and collecting dust on my book shelf, I finished the last page. Pete Fromm, the author and main character, recounts his 7-months living alone - in a tent - through a winter in the Idaho mountains guarding salmon eggs, sipping mountain whiskey, diverting disaster, experiencing the thrills of hunt and survival, and coming face-to-face with the realities of life alone in the mountains. This tale of adventure in the mountains should be a must read for anyone who loves the mountains and for those others who have not grown weary of the classic "coming of age" story. I'm sorry I hadn't read it sooner.
To our friend from the southeast, I hope you made it through the pass and found what you were looking for.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Canadiana: Why I Love Canada
Earlier this year, I was asked by a newspaper editor if I would provide a short list of things I like about Canada that would then run in a Canada Day special edition. I sent over my "top 9" list which was quickly hacked down to maybe three or four. I thought I'd publish the full nine here....Enjoy.
In no particular order, I give you:
#9 – I love watching and cheering for our Canadian hockey team at the World Junior’s every New Year. These guys eat, drink, and bleed maple syrup.
#8 – With Toronto and Vancouver being the 1st and 3rd most ethnically diverse large cities in the world, I have grown to love the great diversity of culture, language, and cuisine that lie within our borders (and restaurants).
#7 – My win percentage in this seasons Roll-Up the Rim contest clocked in perfectly at 100%.
#6 – My friends Ashley Barker and Ryan Thomas, who serve in the Canadian Forces, represent the thousands of young Canadians devoting their life to the good and well-being of our country both at home and abroad. We salute you.
#5 – I am proud to be able to name every single one of Canada’s provincial capitals: Victoria, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg maybe, and umm, can you get back to me? Well at least I know more about Canada than those ignorant Yanks!
#4 – The Charter of Rights and Freedoms which gives freedom by limiting freedom, opens doors to freedom of thought, speech, belief, and lifestyle. Canada should be proud of its ability to display its unity amidst the cultural-mosaic of diversity by BCers eating poutine, prairie people riding downhill mountain bikes, Torontonians noticing the rest of the country, churches being known for what they are for and not for what they are against, and Newfies using Screech to power carbon-neutral vehicles.
#3 – A toque, plaid button-up shirt, long-johns, a pair of Sorrels, a good hockey hair-cut, and a case of Molson constitute formal wear for any occasion. This will also be what eventually destroys Canada.
#2 – Canada’s legislative moto: “Peace, order, and good government.” Two out of three ain’t bad, eh?
#1 – Don Cherry’s Rock’em, Sock’em Hockey.
In no particular order, I give you:
#9 – I love watching and cheering for our Canadian hockey team at the World Junior’s every New Year. These guys eat, drink, and bleed maple syrup.
#8 – With Toronto and Vancouver being the 1st and 3rd most ethnically diverse large cities in the world, I have grown to love the great diversity of culture, language, and cuisine that lie within our borders (and restaurants).
#7 – My win percentage in this seasons Roll-Up the Rim contest clocked in perfectly at 100%.
#6 – My friends Ashley Barker and Ryan Thomas, who serve in the Canadian Forces, represent the thousands of young Canadians devoting their life to the good and well-being of our country both at home and abroad. We salute you.
#5 – I am proud to be able to name every single one of Canada’s provincial capitals: Victoria, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg maybe, and umm, can you get back to me? Well at least I know more about Canada than those ignorant Yanks!
#4 – The Charter of Rights and Freedoms which gives freedom by limiting freedom, opens doors to freedom of thought, speech, belief, and lifestyle. Canada should be proud of its ability to display its unity amidst the cultural-mosaic of diversity by BCers eating poutine, prairie people riding downhill mountain bikes, Torontonians noticing the rest of the country, churches being known for what they are for and not for what they are against, and Newfies using Screech to power carbon-neutral vehicles.
#3 – A toque, plaid button-up shirt, long-johns, a pair of Sorrels, a good hockey hair-cut, and a case of Molson constitute formal wear for any occasion. This will also be what eventually destroys Canada.
#2 – Canada’s legislative moto: “Peace, order, and good government.” Two out of three ain’t bad, eh?
#1 – Don Cherry’s Rock’em, Sock’em Hockey.
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