Goodbye Grandma

Some of you that know me may have heard that my grandma passed away on Thursday. I've been taking it okay, but I appreciate your thoughts and prayers for my whole family, especially my mom and my uncle who've just lost their mom.

Maybe we are a threat

For several years, I've subscribed to the Persecution and Prayer Alert from Voice of the Martyrs. Every week, they send news about persecuted Christians, and sometimes they urge their readers to write letters or emails to governments in defense of these persecuted Christians. Once in a while, I've written letters (but I guess it's been a while).

The Voice of the Martyrs website has some letter writing tips and I think they used to have some examples to follow, but I can't find any right now. In an email to a foreign government, I seem to remember saying something like, "The Bible teaches us to submit to our governments and obey the law, so Christians in your country are not a threat to your government," based on a sample letter I'd read. While it's true that as Christians, we are supposed to obey the law when it doesn't mean disobeying God, something about what I said didn't sit right with me, even as I wrote it. Maybe I'd already heard about how the church had been involved in bringing down communism, mostly peacefully, in Poland. Or maybe I realized that when people have a higher loyalty than their own government, that can non-violently undermine a government.

The more time that passes, the less I believe that Christianity is not a threat to oppressive governments. Sometimes I'm not even sure how it works, but when we serve a God who "opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6), oppressive people and institutions can't stand forever. And if God can conquer death by dying, maybe Christians can conquer oppressors by submitting to them while being loyal to God above all. (But that's easy for me to say, sitting here, experiencing relatively little persecution.)

Ironically, I'm probably less sure of God's existence than I was when I wrote the letter I mentioned.

Love isn't blind; it's myopic

"That's what you do when life hands you a chance to be with someone special. You just grab that brownish area by its points and you don't let go no matter what your mom says."
--Buster Bluth after he found love with his glasses off

You don't know what love is

"You do what you're told
But inside your heart it is black and it's hollow and it's cold."
--Nine Inch Nails

"You don't know what love is
You just do as you're told."
--The White Stripes

Notice a theme here? Love is supposed to be unselfish, and doing what you're told might seem unselfish, but these writers don't seem to think that's a good thing. So your homework this week is to look for situations where the most loving thing to do is not what you're told.

Rambling about warm weather

Maybe I should get something to cover the windows in my car. After a day of work during the summer, the car is always hotter than the outdoors, especially on a sunny day. At least it cools off quickly, thanks to air conditioning.

Meanwhile, I come home, step into the house, and feel a blast of cool air. And I don't have air conditioning at home. I do keep most of the curtains closed while I'm at work though. It is hot in the house, but at least it's not as hot as the outdoors on a warm day. And I don't have to wear as much clothing in the house as in the car! (Clarification for potential roommates: I don't go naked outside of my bedroom and the bathroom if other people, including roommates, might see me. Don't worry. Or don't get excited.)

But even though it's cooler inside and there's less of a dress code, it just feels better to be outside on a hot day.

Crashing a ceilidh

After Montreal, the vacation continued through New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. While we were driving on Prince Edward Island, Cathy noticed a commercial on the radio for a ceilidh. (According to dictionary.com, a ceilidh is "an Irish or Scottish social gathering with traditional music, dancing, and storytelling." By the way, the "dh" is silent.) We thought this would be a good chance to experience some east coast culture, hear music, dance, and that sort of thing.

So we arrived at the Benevolent Irish Society hall that evening and found a room full of middle aged and elderly people sitting in chairs listening to a live Celtic band. The music was good and the hall was packed, but it really wasn't what we expected. Nobody was dancing (for one thing there wasn't room), and there was a lack of people our age.

We sat and listened for a while, and then we noticed that Nick was asleep. (He said he can't really just sit and listen to live music, no matter how good it is.) We figured we wouldn't stay until the end. Then Cathy suggested that we go and dance in the parking lot. I have to admit I dragged my feet a bit, but it was a good idea. We figured out that a polka step seemed to work with the song, so we danced. Then we got our other friends. Nick told the ticket guy what was going on and asked if they could teach us a dance. So a few people came outside to teach us a folk dance. After we sort of got the basics, they asked the band to play a song that would go with the dance.

By intermission we were pretty sure we'd stay for the whole event. After intermission, the same people taught us another folk dance and then asked the band to play a song to go with it. So by then, everyone in the hall knew we were there and knew what we were doing. After that dance, we sat back down and listened to some more music. I think Nick stayed awake this time. Afterward, we thanked the band and our teachers. I got the impression they enjoyed teaching us those dances.

So I want to thank my friends, especially Cathy and Nick, for taking a somewhat disappointing evening and turning it into one of the most memorable parts of the trip. You made a lot of people's day. And a big thank you to the warm, hospitable people at that hall in Charlottetown for accommodating us and passing on a bit of your culture.

Almost finished in Montreal

I'm almost finished my time in Montreal, and then we're off to New Brunswick. When we arrived here, a friend and I got in a cab to go to the place we're staying and meet up with a couple more friends. I tried telling the cab driver how long we'd be there and asking what he recommended doing here, and he didn't really understand. So I told him how long we're staying in French. I couldn't figure out how to ask what he recommended doing. But we continued to talk in French for a few minutes.

It was surprisingly natural to be speaking French again. Of course, I'm far from fluent, and I haven't spoken a whole lot of French on this trip, but what I knew came back faster than I expected. And I think the cab driver spoke slowly so I could understand him. Maybe in Edmonton, it just doesn't feel natural to speak French, especially when most of the French-speakers I know speak English better.

(New readers can go back and read what I wrote in July and August of 2006 when I did my French immersion program. I haven't tagged these posts yet, but when I do, they should be tagged "French.")