i roll over in bed trying not to get mad at the people outside my window who have been shouting for the past half hour. Before frustration sinks in, my thoughts are directed to the psalm we read in evening prayer just a few hours earlier. I lay thinking halfway between sleep and being awake. all i want to do is roll over and go back to sleep, but i sense the prompting to get up and write down my thoughts about this Psalm 26.
I spent the Next three and a half hours writing and praying through the thoughts. I don't know why the Lord had me do it (maybe it would not have made such an impression if i had not written it), but as i was writing the last bit down the computer does what it is inevitably going to do periodically--it shut down and lost the three hours of writing...
You have been spared a really lengthy update. Maybe it was for me, maybe to come out ate some other time.
In summary the thoughts went along these lines:
First, The psalm opens up by seeming to boast with how unwavering, and how pure and holy David thinks he is, but a closer look will find that he is saying God has set His ways in front of David to Love and His faithfulness; David is saying i see it and i walk in the direction that God heart goes with a whole determination of mind soul and Body.

Second, David is saying that he doesn't fool himself into thinking that doing things for His gain, or say one thing and then do whatever he wants; he doesn't allow himself even the opportunity to be mixed up with them. (a bunch of my reflections were on this section. The people most commonly thought of as the group this section talks about are the "non-believers" the people who do the drugs, who fill our prisons, who take advantage of the Charity that "good" people give, who sell their bodies and get polluted with alcohol...you know what i mean. But i don't think that is the crowd this section is talking about being far away from. --if these were them then what am i doing here in the DTES because a large percentage of the people i hang with would fall into these categories. But what about those who say...this is the way of God follow me, and yet it is hard to find any trace of the Faithful and loving God that David sees, what about those who say i see where God is moving, or promise to take care of the poor and oppressed that God loves and then abandons these commitments and insights to do what they want and what will be comfortable for themselves, trying to compromise and say that doing half of God's will is good enough, or those who do good and care for the needy during Christmas and Easter, in order to pat themselves on the back and say i am a good person i have given to the poor but don't do anything for the other 363days of the year, or the people who God pushes on their heart to get out there and minister to the poor, but decide instead to give their money to a shelter and say that is good enough without getting dirty or meeting the the people face to face....) Just some thoughts...

Third, David says that his putting into action the heart He sees in God, gives him an innocence that he can "go around the alter". This to me i saw as a beautiful picture, because the alter is why most people came to the temple, but if he is going around the alter he has come to the place where he can by pass the place of constantly needing to ask for things and ask for blessings, but to a place of dwelling in the presence and enjoying just seeing the presence of God...to tell of God's wondrous acts...The active heart of God in Daily practice, in the faces and people he meets, for there is where the Glory of the Lord dwells.

Fourth, He realizes that this Love and faithfulness and God's grace is what he needs too. He is not above any other but is in as much need as the next person...blessed to be a blessing.

The voices of the people outside my window are the voices of the people who are created to carry the image of God. May all things be reconciled and made holy in Him by the blood of the Lamb Jesus, so that we may go past the alter and dwell in the presence of the Lords Heart being active and rejoicing in the Miracles of our God. May we be continually made into the image of Jesus--the word of God that dwelt among us

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!

I had someone ask if we celebrate Christmas... Yeah, we crazy people do celebrate Christmas Anything to celebrate , after all-it is one of the Five values !
We try not to celebrate the birth of Jesus in the normal rushing around, focus on gifts and how busy you can be but rather to reflect on God's heart and why he sent Jesus as a baby. There was a friend of the community who got together about 12 people to do a bit of a prophetic act in one of the malls. They wanted to call attention to the reason for the season (and how the meaning is lost in all the hubbub of buying and consumerism; buying the perfect gift for the person in your life who has everything, when really the majority of us in our culture have everything we need already...
So this group wanted to do something that would call people to slow down and maybe remind them this is a time for reflecting on God's goodness and grace to send Jesus... In order to show how fast everyone was going they went slow. REALLY Slow. They simply started at on end of the mall and walked to the other, but they went slow. I don't know how slow they went but it was slow enough that the security guards got pretty upset. They told our friends to leave, and they responded "...that is what we are doing, we are on our way out." They said, but go faster!!! The guards even went up to the people who were just watching, and from everyone that had taken photos--they deleted the pictures from their cameras!! can you believe that! A huge mall and only twelve people just walking slow, not stopping anybody from doing what they want to do, could get such a aggressive response. What a prophetic act in our society and culture.

Last night at Creative World Justice we went through the scriptures looking at the ways the prophets and their prophetic acts, The responses were hardly ever great, but they did the word of the Lord like the Lord wanted. Such creativity too! there must have been a lot of unhappy onlookers when Jeremiah buried his loin cloth 400 miles away and then turned right back around to get it walking 1600 miles in total in just a loin cloth --or naked. Or the laughter that must have occurred at the absurdity of choosing to lay on one side for 390 days just to roll over and do another 40 on the other side.

Doing the absurd and the creative to make the points that God lays on our hearts is a powerful image and continuation of the creative voice of God through his people. There is a strange freedom to find that though i don't always have words, but that i do have a voice in different ways; actions sometimes speak louder than words. (like that day in the mall).

Merry Christmas to all of you, and may we remember the prophetic side of Jesus being sent as a baby; the King available to the least by starting life amongst manure and hay, and the first visitors being sheep herders.

Little Mountain and Artists

I went painting at Little Mountain Apartments last Sunday. Here is a link to some of the images( mine included) :
www.photobucket.com/littlemountain
Also here is a write up about it:

Backgrounder: Little Mountain Art-In/tervention

Last Sunday, working in a chill wind under sunny skies, 50 people painted.

More than 50 pieces of art created by professional and amateur artists will go on exhibit starting Monday, December 15, at the Little Mountain Housing complex. The paintings are mounted on the boarded-up windows of vacant apartments slated for demolition during the next few months.

The artists include professionals like Tiko Kerr as well as current and former residents of the complex and their children. Kerr has contributed silhouette representations of former tenants forced to displace other families on BC Housing’s 14,000-name wait list.

Monday’s event will include an opportunity to interview artists, a tour of the paintings on display, opportunities to see the interiors of the homes of the some of the 16 families who remain on site, and the appearance of Santa Claus above one of the boarded-up doorways.

The artists’ goal is a re-opening of the 15-acre site to ease Vancouver’s housing crisis, which is becoming more and more severe as overnight temperatures drop to –10. B.C. Housing Minister Rich Coleman intends to demolish the 224 homes within the next few months. At the earliest, redevelopment would start in 2011 and perhaps much later, yet the homes could be refurbished at a modest cost to house at least 700 of the thousands of people living on the streets and others in desperate need of affordable housing. The refurbishing could begin immediately and the homes kept open until new construction is ready to begin.

The provincial government has pledged to replace the lost social housing units, but not to increase their numbers. CALM wants the entire site to be used for housing for people with low and modest incomes.

Lisa Hawthorne from Dublin, Ireland, kneeled over a 4x5-foot piece featuring the Vancouver skyline and a lost child. “I came here 3 months ago and right away saw how bad the housing is here. There’s housing problems in Ireland, but…I felt I had to do something.”

Tiko Kerr said: “Building social housing and ending homelessness are our greatest social challenges,” said Kerr. “I felt I had to get involved.” Kerr, other participants, Opus Art Supplies and Benjamin Moore Paints donated materials for the Art-In.

Several of the 16 families still living at Little Mountain participated in the Art-In despite concern they might antagonize their landlord, BC Housing. Sammy Chang, 75 years and virtually blind, contributed two sheets of Chinese calligraphy and an English translation by the daughter of his neighbour, Pen Ke Mi. His dry, warm basement is where many of the Art-In works were stored to dry.

“This art event marks the importance of supported and affordable housing and the absurdity of tearing Little Mountain down during the city's housing crisis," said Barry Growe of Community Advocates for Little Mountain Housing (CALM).