I tried to make myself another.
The mask was ready and in place.
Yet you could see past the me I made.
You bid farewell to the me you saw;
now I must bid farewell to the me I made for you.
This is the beginning of an extended project. Every week I will publish a chapter of what could be called a memoir or maybe a travelogue. I know for sure there will be at least three chapters, as I have three in stages vaguely resembling completion, join me for my subway ride.
I think to some extent subways are to city kids what cars are to country kids. The first time I rode the subway by myself was an exhilarating moment. I had taken control of my life. I could go to the farthest edges of my big city and explore. There is a freedom in the subway token like there is freedom in a driver’s license.
For five years the subway was my only way to move. If it was too far to walk I bought tokens and meandered my way there. Sometimes, to get there, all you need is a subway, some times it takes a subway and a bus. Every once in a while I had to get to a station where a friend would drive me to our destination. With the TTC, you will get there, it could be minutes when it should be hours or hours when it should be minutes, but you will get there, eventually.
It strikes me that there are people that make us who we are and things that make us who we are. The object may be less powerful than the person but the subway overshadows so much of who I am and where I’ve been. No other form of transit has carried me more miles.
For all I’ve ragged on the TTC and how poorly managed our transit system is, I grew up on it, I moved like a teenager on it. I traveled to and from work on it. It took me to friends, it took me to loves, I found both while riding it, for better or worse. These are the stories, people, and stations where the subway took me.
I don’t run on Thursdays.
Thursdays are for dancing shoes and a lovely lady.
Thursdays are for sharp daggers and a new lonely.
I didn’t run on Thursdays.
Anne Rice apparently quit Christianity today. She claims to still be a christian, but she does not like a whole lot of Christianity. Leaving aside that I agree with a number of her points, I disagree with the larger spirit of what she was saying.
Let me start a little earlier than I was initially going to. My faith, my Christianity, and my love of Christ remained with me through my late teens for one reason: logic. I was confronted by two strong desires that were hugely in conflict. The first was for freedom, complete, uninhibited freedom. The second was for justice. Don’t think these two conflict? Let me explain further.
The freedom I craved was the freedom from constraints. I wanted to be able to drink whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted. I wanted to sleep with whomever I wanted. I also wanted revenge on a person who nearly ruined my family, by any means necessary. That desire for vengeance held the key to the problem I was faced with. I knew something wrong, something inexcusable, had occurred; yet to walk away from my faith was to allow that the two worlds, the one in which this person believed he was right, and the one in which I believed he was evil, were mutually exclusive. I could not accept that.
It was in this realization that I figured out what sin is. Sin is the catastrophic consequence of wanting things my way, applied universally. To acknowledge the sin in this person’s actions also meant acknowledging the sin in my desire for vengeance, my desire to pass the hurt back. Yet this is the cost of absolutes, that standards exist, standards I may not like, but that I am constrained to. I take up the constraints with the hope and faith that Christ will eventually make sense of what I cannot. I just can’t say I will always like it.
Pigments and Pixels
Torn and tossed into the pacific.
They have traveled with me three years.
From journal to journal, a consistency of you,
No longer there.
On 07.24.10, In Movies, By Liam
This is not going to be a review. I just have to say that Inception was a brilliant movie. This is twice that Christopher Nolan has had a huge amount of hype to live up to, and lived up to it. The concept is so original, the acting is remarkably believable, and some of the scenes are so mind bending that I’m still trying to get out of his world.
Christopher Nolan keeps you guessing right up until the last five seconds, and even then he doesn’t really answer the question. This movie is amazing as a standalone film and needs no sequel. That being said, after the Dark Knight, if anyone can make a sequel it is Nolan. I suspect I’ll be back to the theatre to see Inception again soon enough.
On 07.14.10, In Navel Gazing, By Liam
After far too long journeying (thank you Delta) I have finally arrived on Orcas Island, in Washington state. I am here with my family for a conference. This morning’s session was a fascinating look at friendship through the eyes of Luci Shaw’s relationship with Madeline L’Engle. Her presentation was a beautiful reminder of the love and dirt of relationships. There were two points that stuck with me.
The first was that friendships are different from Family because they are choices. I agreed with her here. You can definitely be friends with your family, but sometimes (and sometimes often) family are also a training ground for dealing with people we would normally not associate ourselves with.
The second point was that friendships are choices, choices based on mutual interests. But they go beyond this. Friendships become a balance of similarities and differences, held in tension. This was wonderfully illustrated when Luci discussed her theological and relational differences with L’Engle.
I think these points heightened my understanding of friendship. What do you think?
On 07.06.10, In Writing, By Liam
The broken heart must find a way to mend.
To mend or die is what hearts do.
But there is pain as the healing rends,
Between I love you and I loved you.
The memories that crack through shuttered windows
Lights up shattered glass like sun on dew.
Too tired to care whose fault this is though,
Between I love you and I loved you.
The defense in dreams of reunion,
Is broken as the stone comes through.
And the sheer facts start to set in
Between I love you and I loved you.
There is a pain that seems endless,
In a future, no longer true.
I hope it drowns in forgiveness
Between I love you and I loved you.
“Repent, the end is near”
A painted sign at a busy intersection.
The end has been near for quite some time.
Yet, my end is closer than I care to admit.
“Repent, Your end is near.”
Would be the sign that I would carry,
Maybe dulling the voice inside me:
“Repent, My end is near.”
On 06.27.10, In Dangerous thoughts, Examples of Stupidity, By Liam
Is anybody else horrified by the going-ons in Toronto today? This is not a city plagued by protests, especially violent ones. There are so many things that can be discussed about what happened yesterday afternoon and right up to this writing. I’m going to focus on three.
The first is that the rioters should not have been allowed to rampage what appears to be virtually unhindered for over an hour. While I understand security of the G20 itself is paramount you cannot tell me 10 000 police officers could not act sooner. I was quite literally cursing the radio as I listened to a reporter describe what was occurring. It was taxpayers, many of whom reside in Toronto, that are footing the billion dollar bill for this event. We deserved better protection for our money.
The second thing is that when I first started listening to the radio this morning I thought that maybe a peaceful protest could be a good thing. They were discussing the various groups that were participating in these protests and it seemed like there was a possibility that this would increase awareness of the various issues and concerns of the participants. I was completely wrong. Now all I can think is that out of the protests and marches from this morning came violence on an unprecedented scale for this city. I am disgusted that protestors were encouraged to bring their children along, seeing that protests have a tendency to get nasty.
Finally, I had my belief that sin exists reaffirmed today. There is something darker than what man alone is capable of when a group starts destroying and breaking buildings, even in one case reported where a man punched through a window with his bare hands. These are people, not so different from myself, who seem to be driven into a bizarre sort of delirium. I have to say, there but for the grace of God go I.
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