Continuing…

This post is a continuation of my last post. Thanks y’all for your comments and emails. I’m not exactly sure what I will make them read but hopefully God will help me find just the right thing.

I’m at my friends’ place right now but nobody’s here for the weekend, so I’ve been looking at different videos on Islam on youtube. Teaching Muslims twice a week, chatting with them about their religion and culture makes me curious, I want to know why they believe what they believe . At the same time, I find it important to at least know a little about Islam and what Muslims and non-Muslims think of it. It’s been very interesting watching these videos and I’d like to share one with you.

The lady was raised in the Middle-East and turned away from Islam, she is now a psycyatrist in the States. She is not a Christian or anything else, but I think what she says can be eye-opening for us Christians. I watched the whole video, but the part I am refering to here is the first few minutes when she speaks of Muslims being prisonners of their own beliefs.

I don’t agree with everything she says, because some of her comments are not stuff that Jesus would say.

Stike’s Over!

I know most of you either were not aware of this or don’t care, BUT I am filled with such a joy that I need to share it!

Since Tuesday, the STM (Montreal “Society” of Transport)’s employees were on stike. This means that nobody could use buses or the métro for transportation, the service was only maintained at rush hours. It was a frustration for lots of people and it created more trafic on the highways during the week. The ESL class I teach was cancelled today because we all come by métro and bus. The employees and the STM was given 48 hours on Wednesday to agree on something and provide the service again. I was wondering if I could use the métro tomorrow, so I just checked and found out that the service was going to be given from tonight on!

You might wonder why it bring me so much joy. You might think that since the service was still given at rush hours it should suffice. Well, not really, because rush hours are always pretty busy and everybody is sort of stuck in the buses and métro, now imagine the rush hour plus everybody else that usually come earlier or later in the morning wanting to get in the bus or the métro. This is not a nice picture. Serious, Montréal without buses and the métro is crazy. I would say that a great majority of people depend on this servic for daily obligations so it’s good news that we’ll be able to depend on it again…

As you must guess, the strike was about money (surprising eh). It reminds me that in life, the choices we make do not only affect ourselves. They affect people around us. We may care, we may not care. I’ve seen that problem everywhere. When we fight for our happiness we can easily hurt people and it can cost other people’s hapiness. That’s probably called self-centeredness. It’s important not to just look at ourselves, our needs, our desires. We must think about the people around and what they need, what’s most important. I know, these are new values we must add to our system, crazy eh? I am not being sarcastic here…

Wardrobe

Did you celebrate the Queen’s day on Monday? Well, if you live in Canada, you were probably off that day “Victoria Day” is a vacation for us. Some people celebrate “La fête de Dollar” (some guy’s birthday or celebration…) or “Patriotes” I don’t really know what this one is about… Anyways. I didn’t celebrate the Queen or anybody, but it just happened that my friend invited me for a BBQ that night. Nothing tastes like BBQ, we all know that. But anyways, as I was sipping (is that a word?) my Iced Cappuccino waiting for the bus with my friend, we talked about a book I read when I was in bible school. It was a book I had to read for a class called “La femme chrétienne” (The Christian Woman) obviously guys didn’t take this one, they had “L’homme chrétien” (The Christian Man) instead. Anyways, I’m making this story WAY too long for NO reason. I remember writing at the end of my exam for that course that I did not recommend the book I’d read and that I seriously encouraged them to think about NOT putting it in their bibliography for next year. This book was really legalistic… in a way that you probably never thought of before. The author was telling the reader how important it was for a “good” Christian woman to have lists of pretty much everything she owned, especially clothes. Women should count how many pieces of clothes they have, write down the colour and what fits with what. Everything should be well organized and the list ready to be used at anytime. Why? In case you quickly need to go somewhere, so you don’t waste your time figuring out what to wear and what fits together. There was much more to this, but I remember thinking that the author was going too far, way too far, she was even describing everything she had in her wardrobe and etc. I guess it’s okay for anybody to make such lists (and I’d be the type to actually do that), but one should not put this burden on anybody else’s shoulders (my opinion). So I was talking to my friend about the book and we thought that I should do the same type of thing on my blog. Show you how important it is to be organized. Anyways, you can take a look at my drawers and … well, I was doing laundry when I took the pictures. The purpose of sharing these with you? … I don’t know. That was an idea we had on Monday night. That’s it.

Oh, by the way, take a look at the “Brain Breaks” page up there, theire’s some new stuff.

wretched people

Good night.

It’s getting late but if you’re looking for entertainment for your mind, well here are some safe stories to read about.

I was in church this morning and there happen to be, sitting among brothers and sisters, a man who was drunk. This is Montreal, downtown. That sort of things does not happen very often for sure, but people from the streets do drop in. The man was disrupting the meeting by being loud, so he was asked to leave, but obviously, he did not see why he should so he stayed. There is this rule in the church that drunk people are not allowed to attend church meetings. Some elders and people tried to persuade him to leave, but it was a waste of time. Finally, a white-haired man from a couple rows in front of the little commotion, got up and sat down, right besides the drunken man. The older man put his arm around the man’s shoulders and talked to him gently. The service continued and 10 minutes later, as the pastor was preaching, two police officers came in and took the drunk man away. The pastor obviously stopped preaching and told the congregation why this man had to leave and how we’d like to see him be freed from alcohol. He then prayed for him (the police officers waited for the prayer to be over) and then they left.

What I like about this little story is the love the church showed to this drunk man. Especially the love than the older man showed him. The drunk man was not dressed in his “Sunday’s clothes” as we say in French and he probably did not smell good. But the old man did not seem to care, he treated him like a child who was too young to understand he had to be quiet in church, with so much love. Just the fact that the pastor prayed for him, showed how much he cared, even though the man probably did not understand much, at least the police officers were witnesses of this love.

Now another story from my today.

I was at Berri-Uqam, waiting for the next métro to come by and bring me home. I looked at the time and realized I would have to wait for another 7 minutes. It was late. A man came by and asked me if I knew what time it was. Looking at my watch and I told him, “11:12″ or something like that. He thanked me and shook my hand. Right there I knew he was not the “average” type of person taking the métro, he was probably “not all there” or drunk or I don’t know. People don’t shake your hand for telling the time. So I knew I was in for some fun (I’m being sarcastic here). The man then told me he was a little sad today. Being such a prolific speaker I did not know what to say. I told him how it happens to everybody, once in a while and how we often feel better after a night of rest. But he told me he had been feeling that way for a while. I asked him what he was going to do about it. He didn’t know. “Do you know Jesus” was my next question. He didn’t really answer, he simply said he didn’t believe in him, he had asked and asked from him, but nothing ever worked. The métro came by and we got in. He continued, saying that he was fed up with all the religion and he didn’t believe in any of the “prophets” (I’m not sure what he meant). I didn’t know what to say. So I said, “What are you going to do then?” He didn’t know. I asked him “Then how can I help you?” He said he didn’t know. My station was next and I was about to step out so I simply told him I had found hope in Jesus.

These two little stories tell about broken people. A man, slave to alcohol and a sad man without hope, ready to ask help from a little stranger like me. I’m not really sure how to act and what to say but I know for certain that when Christians display love, even when it is not appreciated, it glorifies God and brings the Kingdom of God in our midst somehow. Why the Kingdom? I don’t know, that’s the way it feels - “The Kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet… He sent his servants to those who had been invited … but they refused to come. … Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready .. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ ” (Matthew 22:1-10)

There are so many wretched people - they too are invited to join us at the banquet. That’s how the Kingdom of God looks like.

Pursued

I feel like I haven’t have any real rest since a week. I started a cold and worked lots no matter the little energy I had. I’ve been busy going from Montreal to the South Shore to Montreal to my dad’s to Montreal and teaching. Ah and on Sunday we helped my grandparents move out and then in their new home. I was really tired by the end of the day and just wanted to leave, but eh they needed us. I’ve never felt low on energy like that since the day I was born. I have enough energy to do all I need to, but it is so tiring, all of the sudden just to be in the métro, my energy goes down and I feel dizzy. It’ll go away… someday.

So I’m living by myself now, still at my grandparents’ place (well, their old place) and it’s neat. For little things like, doing laundry after supper, playing the guitar without a care about how loud it is, leaving the house without saying goodbye to anybody or when I should be back, taking a shower at 12:30pm… all kinds of little things that make me feel more at peace, more free. I can rest, at last from the routine and the “oh not too loud” or “man, I have no other time than in the evenings to do laundry these days, when am I going to get to do it?” or just planning my time according to the fact that I know that my grandma will talk to me for a little bit before I leave. It’s a good feeling to be here by myself.

Since I think of it, I don’t know what he studied in, but my brother-in-law just graduated from seminary. Clap clap clap. I thought I should highlight this event since I seem to highlight everything going on around me.

Ah, before I leave. I just noticed the title of this post. Pursued. Well my grandparents are not living here anymore and I’m enjoying it, especially the fact that I am no longer caught up in my grandma’s long conversations. So the phone rang. And yes, it was my grandma. No, she had nothing in particular to tell me, but she did talk to me for a little while about all kinds of things. I felt as if I was pursued… hopefully she won’t call me every night! Oh well, I wonder about what love is though.

Cold & Sunburn

Again this week I went to my mom’s place to work for them. I worked outside for a good three days and the weather was just beautiful. On the first day I worked with a long sleeve shirt with the sleeves actually rolled almost up to my elbows. When I took my shirt off in the evening I noticed something kinda funny. I had this big sunburn, but only on 3/4s of my forearms (you can admire the drawing of my new arms… the colour wouldn’t scan though…. the black is supposed to be red) On top of that burning sunburn (oh I found one on the back of my neck and my face is no longer so white too), I found myself with a cold. I don’t know why, I started having a sore throat the day I left Montréal. Oh well.

As I walked from my metro to my grandparents’ I started thinking about something pretty fun. I really CANNOT taste anything because of my cold. It’s never been that bad, I can’t taste or smell anything. I enjoy eating, but today I just didn’t feel like eating (first because I’m not feeling so good), my food didn’t taste like anything, it was just… blah. So what’s the point of eating when it does not taste good… or even bad, it’s just blah?

I think that it would be interesting if it would work the same way with sin. That sin would have no flavour to me anymore. I’m guessing that as the years go by and as I grow, sin will become tasteless to me. But could you just imagine, if sin would have no taste, no smell anymore, we’d just feel like, oh whatever, I don’t feel like sinning anymore.

I need to get a spiritual cold so I have no taste for sin.

I should leave now, just the lamp over the keyboard here warms my arms and it’s…. burning them.