God is our clothing.

Julian of Norwich: "I saw that for us he (God) is everything that is good and comforting and helpful.  He is our clothing, wrapping and enveloping us for love, embracing us and guiding us in all things, hanging about us in tender love, so that he can never leave us." (Revelations of Divine Love. Trans. Elizabeth Spearing.  London: Penguin, 1998, 7)

I can't say that I ever thought of God as our clothing before, but I kind of like this image...like putting on an old sweatshirt and a well-worn pair of jeans.  Or like watching Betsy the other day wear and love my florescent green sushi pajamas.  

I'm really quite glad, my sushi pajamas have a new home.  I bought them on 4th Street in Berkeley three or four years ago; they were a bit of a splurge, but I really liked them, and I didn't own any proper pj's so I got them.   They've got this really cute sushi print all over; like the sushi posters you see at Japanese restaurants showing you the nigiri sushi.  It's really educational; it tells you what ebi looks like, toro, maguro etc.  I really like them a lot, except they're flannel.  And not just any flannel, but industrial-strength super-insulated flannel or something.  I get so hot wearing these pajamas that I don't think I've lasted an hour without kicking off my comforter. I boil in them, and thus, I never wear them.

Betsy's pj's are worn out, and the other night she was over, so I brought them out.   I could tell she liked the color right away and was really intrigued by the design.  She put them on and even though the arms and legs were too short, her face just glowed with delight.  She honestly looked so happy, which made me very happy and then proceeded to wear them for the rest of the night.  "Wow!  Don't you just want to eat me?" she kept exclaiming.  Uh, not really, but I'm really glad you like them and that you're not too hot in them.  She just kept beaming; she looked so comfortable, relaxed, wrapped up in florescent flannel, my fellow foodie enveloped in wonderful suggestions of sushi.  She looked so loved.

What are you doing in Europe this summer?

So my dear friend Melody asks: 

"what are you doing in Europe this summer? (excuse me if you've already told me)"  

This is a fair question, because...err...I realize that I actually have not really spelled out what I'm doing this summer, because (a) I have all these emails sitting in my inbox (I'm working on them!  Really!), (b) I'm still trying to figure that out, (c) I haven't been the best at updating people in many years, and (d) I'm not really that good at updating people I see day to day.  I'm working on all this, thus the blog.

Anyway, in regards to my summer, here's an answer I gave to my community group:  click here.  Here's a bit more if you are curious:

I'm going to this place called Caux, which is near Geneva.  It's this Belle Epoque hotel converted into an international place for moral and spiritual reconciliation...by moral and spiritual reconciliation, I think they mean the stuff minus the institutional stuff.  The institutional stuff would be like the US formally apologizing for Japanese internment and redressing that.  The stuff minus that would be the daily interactions between people, so groups that have conflict can live with one anther.  (Apparently, it played a really key role after World War II in reconciling the French and the Germans.)   Basically, as you know, I feel called to reconciliation, unity, and things like that, particularly within the Church...and I'm going because I really want to see how other people outside the church are understanding conflict resolution. 

Anyway, in the summer they host a series of conferences, some of which I get to take part in...and parallel with that they have this program where they gather 20 students from around the world to learn about how to do this stuff.  Each student gets to write a paper called "Conflict Where I Come From" which I just discovered I need to have written before my trip.  I think I'm going to write mine on the North American Evangelical World...or maybe I need to narrow that down, but I don't know if I want to.  Anyway, it's suppose to be a good time, and you get to meet these amazing people.  I'll be at Caux for 31 days.

And since I'll already be in Switzerland, and since I have all these great Regent friends who live in Europe...it seems ridiculous not to see them.  Also, here's my time to get some traveling in...because I actually haven't seen that much of Europe or the world really.  So yeah, that's what I'm doing in Europe this summer.

Kayaking in retrospect

Okay, so "Just wandering" (aka Jackie, Queen of Blogging) is telling me that I don't blog often enough.  Hey, I just blogged on Sunday.  Today is Tuesday.  I think that's pretty good.  

Anyway,  yeah...I meant to blog about kayaking....I went kayaking for the first time on Saturday.  For Jackie's brief version see: this link.  Here's my mine:

On Saturday, I went kayaking for the first time.  This is something I've wanted to do for a long time, and Jackie, Queen of the Outdoors, was gracious enough to take me.  I promised Betsy I'd help her move, so we stayed local and kayaked around False Creek.  It was really fun.  We rented a 2-person kayak from a place on Grandville Island, and then set out in this thing that everyone reassured me was "really stable."  Ocean kayaks never capsize I was told, but nevertheless I was a bit freaked out for the first 4 minutes.  I just wanted to capsize just to get over my fear, but Jackie told me that that was not a good thing, but a rather annoying thing.  And then she pointed out the big boats.  So, I looked at the big boats and transfered my fear over to them.  That lasted about two minutes when I realized most of these boats weren't moving and that I should be more afraid of being able to sustain my paddling.  My upper body strength is rather sad, and Jackie kept on giving me tips:  Your elbows are too bent.  Try to keep your arms straight.  Stop hitting the boat.  She said this all from the back of the kayak, where the more experienced person steers and stuff.  The beginner is stuck in the front where I couldn't see her at all.  I found it hard to take her verbal directives and translate them into action.  Nerdy me, I got very excited whenever another kayak came up to us, and I'd stare at their stroke and try to model it.  Very friendly people, these other kayakers, and I think after an hour or so, I finally figured out a rhythm.  I think the key for me is to sit up straight. 

I didn't realize kayaks sat so low on the water.  It really is quite a humbling posture and gives you a whole different perspective on Vancouver.  Birds too we saw---we saw a lot of birds doing all sorts of things on the water.  I'd look out and see all these random long necks sticking out of water; it's kind of a funny sight.  Then I'd see birds running on the water, dancing on top of the water, diving into the water.  I almost felt this new kinship to birds.  Historically speaking, (that is, in my personal life history) I have never been a big fan of birds.  Particularly big birds who can't fly.  Ostriches and Emus scare me.  But you won't find too many of those in Vancouver.  Anyway, I think I have this new appreciation for birds. 

And then we say this little sea otter who stayed pretty close to us for a long time.  I think he was checking us out...and then he dove into the water and came out beside us and jumped over our kayak.  I'm not joking!  Actually, I really am joking....and I reiterate a story that Jackie tried to pass of as true to Sara and me when we were in Tofino a few weeks back.  She went on and on about it for a good 20-30 minutes.   O Hail, Jackie, Queen of Exaggerated Stories.  (We really did see a sea otter though.)

So, that was kayaking.  Quite fun, I'll have to do it again.

chinese kosher head tax

Two noteworthy things today. The first, I suppose is not exactly
noteworthy, just curious, or curious to me. It falls under the "only in
Vancouver" category. Today, I bought lunch for me and Betsy at a
restaurant called Sabra. It was a desperate lunch. We had to eat, were
pressed for time and were limited by location. Betsy needed to pack
(she's moving), and I need to prep for a meeting (see noteworthy thing
#2). Sick of sandwiches, I made Betsy go pack, and I wandered around
Oak and 22nd to fetch lunch. There's not much there but a bustling
Starbucks and the little that is there is closed on Sunday. Sabra was
open, and after walking in...staring at the menu and strolling around
the block again for different options, I realized desperate times must
dismiss my picky-ness. Sabra is clearly a Jewish deli; and I love
Jewish delis, but this is not a New York Jewish deli and it isn't even
like Solly's on Broadway. It's its own thing altogether...I especially
thought this when I was shown the menu and underneath "kosher restaurant
and bakery" read in the same font size "Chinese and international
cuisine." No Chinese items were in sight, nor were they on the menu.

Anyway. I guess Jews and Chinese aren't exclusively a "only in
Vancouver thing"...there is that book /Peony/ (I think it's called) by
Pearl Buck about a Chinese Jewish girl in China. And there's that
reference in Isaiah about the Jews being scattered as far as the land of
Sinim. And there's archaeological evidence in China of synagogues, and
I think there are still some in existence, or at least there was as late
as 1930. And then today my friend Maria told me about an Asian concert
she went to Friday that was sponsored by a Jewish organization in
Vancouver. Go figure.

More Jews and Chinese links! Apparently, at my 3pm meeting today, a
Jewish group wanted to come and support the Chinese Head Tax redress but
had some big Israel event today. This brings me to noteworthy thing
number 2: I got to hang out with reconciliation-type people today. The
organization that they are with sponsor Caux, the program I'll attend
this summer in Switzerland. Very interesting. Today, we met with Bill
Chu who is the Chinese Christian guy, in his 50s(?) and he goes to
Grandview Calvary Baptist. Anyway, he's really involved with
reconciliation...I think his last big thing was to help organize Chinese
Christian Canadians and Aboriginal peoples. Right now, he's working on
an event that will coincide with the Canadian government's apology for
charging Chinese people who wanted to stay in Canada with a head tax.
The head tax to a Chinese Canadian is like the epitome of a lot of
racial yuckiness. His hope is that the event will help bolster the
vertical (government-people) apology with a horizontal (people-people)
apology---the latter of course is where the real grief happened.
Anyway, our meeting today was to help organize non-Chinese...of which
apparently the Jewish org who couldn't make it still wants to make a
part. Really interesting.