Learning

I was just reading through some old journals and blogs and it was nice to see how far I have come along in the past 4 years.

I am not good with words so I am going to steal some peoples like Douglas Coupland in his book “Life after God” in which he tells us his secret, a secret that I share …. The secret is
“I need God-I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me to be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond able to Love”

I was out with my dad today and he just amazed me! Most of the people I hang out with have it pretty together and then I hang out with my dad who is messed up and who do I see God in? My dad! Why him? Well I have to start with when I was living in Montreal the first time on TREK I had this roommate named Laura, we shared a room and a bed for 8 months and she was the first to teach me about forgiveness. She did this by displaying it to me; she couldn’t go to bed without saying sorry to me if we had a disagreement, which was probably my fault because I can be quite inconsiderate at times.
The same thing I can say about my dad… I have all these friends who talk about Grace and Love and I don’t see them do anything about it, they all just seem to complain about this and that; the same goes for me... I am all talk!
But my dad, he isn’t all talk… he believes in people, in giving them a chance, he remembers that they are human and he allows them to be that. I am upset inside because he wont accept it, he doesn’t believe he is worth … he is the only person that I have met that actually feels repentance over the choices that he is made.. The only one… so today I feel like I learned something about repentance… and grace. I don’t know how long my dad will stay around but I am more then grateful he is here, I need him.

I believe we need relationships and people, at least I believe it for myself. I think certain people can remind us not to be so selfish about things like our time and abilities…the more people I encounter the more I become convinced that there are a lot of lonely people at there, lots of hurt and here I am sitting in luxury of friends and “things” and gosh everything and with such an ungrateful heart… Its not that the things are bad, it’s the heart that’s the problem…it’s my condition that is saying I need more and that I don’t need to give more out… I feel so scrambled inside my heart… like I need to purge myself of something…

Here are more words I am going to steal from the author of the book “practicing the presence of people”

“To be in the presence of even the meanest, lowest, most repulsive specimen of humanity it still to be closer to God than when looking up into a starry sky or a beautiful sunset”