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Christians baffle me. This past year I have seen more Christian friends fall away than I ever thought possible. People I used to look up to for questions of faith and of God. Now I am watching them slowly destroy themselves by the unwillingness to put God first in their lives. By their unwillingness to give up their selfish desires for Him. It's made me study my own walk with God more intently than I have in a long time. Am I any different? I get distracted and worry about money and work, and I get busy and don't make time for Him. Am I willing to give up those things for God? Am I also living for my selfish desires, or is their a deeper, Christ-like passion that is driving the actions of my life.

"The more I see of the world, the more I am dissatisfied with it." - Jane Austen
I thought of that today, and how true it is. The older I get, the more I learn and experience and witness, the more my heart breaks for what we've lost. For what we are losing every day. For how we destroy ourselves choice by arrogant choice, and then wonder why we feel sad, or broken, or lost, and why God feels so incredibly far away. I had a very rough couple weeks at work. I went to terrible calls and saw horrible things, and left each of them thinking to myself that no one should have to see these things. That these things should not even happen. And as I biked home from work one night crying on my bicycle at 3 am, the entire sky opened up with northern lights. And as gorgeous as they were, and as majestic as those shifting swirls of green and pink cascading across the sky were, they were filled with sorrow. And out of them, I felt like God was weeping over His lost creation. Over the works of His tender hands, created in His own image, that He must sit and watch turn to darkness and destruction because He was gracious enough to give us free will.

I thought of how we spit in His face by ignoring Him. How we put Him second and third and fifth to meaningless objects and bank accounts, and flesh. I thought of how heavy His heart must be for us. So full of love, so full of our potential, and what we could become, but instead choosing to be stuck here, drowning in our own bad choices. I wish we cared enough about God to put Him first.

Church Thoughts Take II

God blows my mind. Despite my unwilling heart, my unfaithfulness, and my indifference He is still here, carrying me across the sand...

So in my last entry I was going through a rough part of my life where I felt like my perceptions of church and what it means to me were crumbling apart around me. I spent most Sundays trying to think of reasons why I should go to church, which more often than not ended up being for the sole reason that God wants me too. I remember driving to the Sunday service in Clint's truck and whispering to him, "we can still skip.... we're not there yet, we can still skip..." Luckily for me Clint drove unswervingly to the church on all such occasions. But last Sunday I experienced something that I'm beginning to discover was missing previously from "church." Community. A big word we throw around a lot, but I think last week I saw it. I got to sit in the front row and take part it in it. I watched as people poured out their hearts to each other. I saw them be vulnerable. I saw the light of God in their eyes. Saw the glow, that glow you can only get from talking about Christ. And I was happy. Not only happy, but joyful. Overflowing in a sense - literally since my eyes kept getting wetter and wetter somehow... Damn plank in it I guess.

When I was struggling with church, and how I fit in it, my Mom wrote me a letter. Which in itself is pretty sweet because we've lost the value of letters I think, and my parents live only two blocks away. In it she explained some of the same feelings that she has been struggling with, and one comment that she made that has stuck with me, was that the church isn't perfect. It can be broken and frustrating, and all around drive you crazy. But Christ loves it. He loves it so much He died for it. I've seen some of the worst of churches of the years, but I've also seen some pretty amazing things in church that I will never forget - that could be a blog for another time I suppose....

I know I have some things I need to work on. I know that there will be days where I will still dislike the church, where I will still whisper to Clint that we can still skip... where I will still feel like I don't fit, and that other people don't fit and that its not welcoming enough, not passionate enough, not generous enough. But now that I'm realizing the value of the people in that church along with me, maybe I can take those things with a grain of salt. What is that saying they use in Sunday school? The church isn't the building, it's the people.

My Brothers and Sisters in Quaint and Comfortable Oblivion

I hate church. There you have it. The true confessions of a Christian. I Heather, hate the church. I try not to, I try to be positive about it, I try to be a part of it, but in the back of my mind, unescapable and lingering, is that feeling of wasting time and energy for something that if it was taken out of my life would only succeed in making me a happier person.

I supposed I should elaborate on my feelings of dislike towards the church. When I say I hate the church, I don't mean the people that go to church. I think as individuals I have met most of the amazing people I know at church. My parents go to church, and I thoroughly love and respect them. My mentor goes to church. My friends go to church. The people at churches are dynamic and beautiful and loving. But there is something about those individuals all coming together under a religious roof with religious cliches and signs and religious ideas, promoting their religion, that I hate. I think church sucks the souls out of Christians by slowly and steadily making us believe that what Jesus wants from us is to be utterly and completely involved in Christian things, and that by creating this wonderful safe bubble of Christianity we are actually doing his will. I guess to follow Jesus we have to file into church pews.

The worst part of church, is that every church secretly hates all the other churches and thinks that they are better than those churches because they aren't big screw ups like them. They are having problems because they don't have faith like ours. Or they are having problems because they don't hand out coupons like us. But we're not like that. We're different. We're in the right Christian bubble, the bubble with Jesus in it.

Sometimes it seems like the only thing churches have ever accomplished is to drive people away who didn't fit into our Christian stereotype we decided was necessary to be loved by God. And the only thing church has taught me is how to waste my life thinking about myself. Serving myself. I think if we were to really look at everything we do within the church (and I do mean EVERYTHING) we would find it's all for us. All for people like us. Christians like us. Everyone we've surrounded ourselves with is like us. And anyone who isn't, will soon end up leaving because they will realize that church isn't where they belong.

I wish Jesus could have lived in our time. I think we need him to overturn our pretty display tables and offering plates, in our richly furnished, exclusive buildings. I think we're so lost and in need of saving that it would take that much to get our attention.

Overcome or Overcoming

There is so much evil in our world. Sometimes it feels like I am drowning in the stuff. Slowly becoming saturated with darkness, until doubts arise as to whether any of this is worthwhile or purposeful. My wise roommate once said to me: "Don't let evil overwhelm you." And while I didn't realize the weight of her words at that moment, I have found myself thinking more and more about them these past weeks. I think I'm beginning to see that whether or not we drown in this darkness, is entirely dependent on whether or not we latch on to the life preserver.

Just over two weeks ago I got to experience a woman giving birth. Before you coo and awww at how precious it must have been, allow me to point out that the mother of the infant injected cocaine 20 minutes before the delivery. That the helpless child was born with his hands and feet twitching with the withdrawls, and that the mother, who earnestly kept inquiring how her baby was, will not get to see his first birthday. She has had five children, and has gotten to keep none of them. Since there are always two of us that go on calls my partner attended to the mother and cut the cord, while I wrapped the baby boy no bigger than a football in blankets. I was the first person to hold that child. The first to wrap my arms around him and look into his face. And I was suddenly aware of the battle between light and dark.

On the one hand there was new life in the room. The baby, despite the withdrawls, was born healthy and was truly the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. On the other hand I could not help thinking about his future... What home would he end up in? would loving parents adopt him? would he end up in foster homes? Would he know his immense value and worth as an individual, or be broken by the fact that his mother was unable to care for him? Would this innocent end up where she was fifteen or twenty years down the road?

And then I remembered the truth I know so well. That all of this is out of my hands, and held instead by a Creator who sees every sparrow fall. Who even though I don't understand Him, and He doesn't always seem fair, still gives me that peace that He is present and in control. Somehow that's enough for me, I guess. Despite all the evil, despite the immense suffering we see in this cursed planet, God is still with us. Still walking beside us. Still holding our hands. Still guiding us through the night.

The darkness is still there, it just doesn't seem quite so dark anymore...

Don't Drink the Poison.

I haven't had to deal with much injustice in my life, but last week I found myself suddenly staring it full in the face. Our contract had expired for work, and so after being under deliberation for several months we had a union meeting to discuss the changes. I sat in a room with my coworkers and watched page after page of clauses roll by with the underlying message that I am worthless as an employee and that I have little to no value. In this new contract I am expected to be available more, I cannot take a vacation for more than two weeks. Which may sound reasonable, except that I am a casual employee with no guaranteed hours, just on call shifts. They have made new rules making it almost impossible for me to get a second job, they didn't raise the on call wage, which would have been a small way for them to show they were at least trying to cooperate. Not only that, but to add to the insult, they have agreed to pay full time employees twice as much as part timers for being on call. Full time employees are never on call. It a cheap, sneaky move on their part to try and make this hideous contract more appealing to the full timers. I wish I was dumb enough to tell myself they didn't do all of this on purpose, and not because of the known fact that there are a lot more full time employees than part time, and therefore that we have little chance of defending ourselves. My reward for having a company I've never trusted cinch its fingers tighter around my throat, was a forty five cent raise. 45 cents. Apparently thats what I'm worth. The contract ended with a bribe. As if they couldn't sink any lower, they promised a thousand dollars to every full time employee who agreed to sign. Part timers would be paid according to hours. Which means the people getting stabbed in the back by this contract, aren't even rewarded for agreeing to do what they want. No, instead they are paying the people they have already made it so clear, are the only worthwhile employees in this disease of a company.

When the meeting ended (Suffice to say, I voted no), I stood by the windows and told myself to just breathe. I felt like I had just lost a battle I didn't even know I was in. I was saturated with rage. More anger I think than I have felt in my whole life. Part of me wanted to throw a chair through the window. The other part wanted to hand in my uniform and just walk away. I gave 18 months of sweat and tears to a job with the belief that at some point it would have to get better. But now I see the truth. That things are, in fact, slowly getting worse. I suppose I can at least hold on to the fact that it was only a year and a half and not any longer.

I got an email with the results of the vote today. 73% were in favor of it. Deep down, I had hoped for at least a lower number than that. If only we could make some sort of stand. If only a whole bunch of us could walk away from the job together. Throw down our stethoscopes and storm out, never to be seen again. But the company has the bigger hand, and I'm sure they know it. People have husbands and children and mortgages and car payments. They can't simply walk away.

Stairway to Joy

Ah boredom. My old friend. Actually I havent been bored in a really long time. Lately, whenever I have a chance to do nothing its amazing. Of course doing nothing, with someone is different than doing nothing by yourself. So that probably is a huge part of it. But as of this moment, I am bored. Alone, and bored.

Here's a story to pass some time. I was walking down the sidewalk with a good friend one day in the middle of the summer, when we came across various drawings in multi-coloured sidewalk chalk. Most of them were the usual chaotic scribbles of a six year old, but one caught my eye. It looked like a rickety old ladder, just a whole bunch of lines giving the impression of rungs, and it stretched for a good ten steps down the street. At the bottom end was a label that stated, quite simply: Stairway to Joy. My friend and I proceeded to follow the trail of steps until we came to the end. Labeled at that end were the same three words. Stairway to Joy. Both of us laughed at the ignorant but deep philosophical point that the maker of the drawing had demonstrated.
How fleeting it is to pursue happiness, or joy. Their will be no end to the chase, the prize will forever evade you.

Hmmm. Ten minutes have passed. That didn't take as much time as I had hoped.

Devil on My Back

Ah faithful blog. It has been too long. We had a bit of a falling out over the past months when I tried this thing with facebook, but it didn't end up working out.

What a topsy turvy several months it has been too. Full of breakdowns and long nights, self pity and stress, exhaustion, threat of illness, miniature disasters, and soaring emotional highs. All of those, minus the latter, were brought on by my work, which seems, despite my best efforts, to slowly swallow every aspect of my life until there is nothing but a bleary dismal schedule ahead, and the bitter taste of night shifts behind.

I had a revelation one night. After being awakened from a pleasant sleep at three in the morning by my cell phone ringing and work demanding that I "Get in as quick as possible", for what felt like the twenty thousandth time that week. I proceeded to burst into hot, exhausted tears, pleading for some salvation that I knew deep down was not coming, and that I was only prolonging the inevitable: That long, cold drive back to work. As I sat on Louis's frigid seat (my amazing Honda for those who don't know), and rolled habitually down the road, I thought about work from a step back. I looked at my whole last year. My first year in EMS. At the progression from when I started, in love with my job, happy to do it, amazed that I had gotten it, to this point. This ugly, hate filled point. I didn't like the person work was making me. I still don't, and maybe it's a cop-out to blame work for my change in attitude, but the fact still remained that something did have to change. I was angry all the time. I was frustrated. I no longer worked hard, but just did the minimum to get by, and seemed to almost fail even at that. I hated my coworkers, I hated my bosses, and I hated my patients. To borrow the words of Taking Back Sunday, I was "so sick of being tired, and oh so tired of being sick." I could feel my life slipping past me, full of all the things I was missing out on because I had to work. Birthdays, holidays, Sunday afternoons with my family, Church, friends. I was missing it all. Missing it for a mere job that I didn't enjoy.

Getting to work is the worst part. The dread slowly increases, and especially in the winter time it is usually cold and dark. By the time I arrived and was ready for work, I felt better. I fell into a really impacting conversation with the guy I was working with. We talked about work, how we hated it, how neither of us wanted to do it anymore. He told me he was going to school in January. Something about that stuck with me. Getting out was an option. For some reason I had convinced myself that I was stuck. That because I had gone to school to do my job, I had to stay with it. It was incredibly refreshing to finally have someone who agreed with me.

So I made myself a deal. One more year. And if my feelings towards work haven't changed then I'm getting out of it. Out while I'm still young and don't give away everything I have to offer in exchange for being a workaholic.