Glug glug…

Bottled water = real stupid.
Bottled water “fortified” with vitamins and additives = disturbing.

Think about this obsession outside of North America…

Where Are The Dogs Humping.com

It’s just emotion…

I have been browsing through some old blog posts of mine, some from as far back as 2005. I have decided that I no longer know how to share my emotions with people, and I guess that doesn’t feel good. I feel… stunted in some ways. Being here at Wycliffe has helped me out with that a bit, but I still feel emotionally stunted these days. Which, I sometimes think, may have something to do with the depression I have been dealing with over the past year or so.

Anyway, I won’t dwell on bad things. I will post these two pieces that I wrote back in June of 2005, and posted on my blog in December of ‘05 originally. The first half of the first piece seems to sum up where I am right now. The second one is where I am on a rare day. Hope you enjoy them. Tell me what you feel about them. Share your emotions with me!

You call and I hear You, I turn away.
You reach out your familiar hand, I recoil.
I yearn to come closer, to be with You, yet I am afraid.
Your eyes are full of love and grace, but all my cloudy eyes can see is judgement.
I am lost in a dense cloud, lost at sea for years.
Suddenly a light breaks through, a light that is purer than any I have seen before.
The light is reflected in the tears streaming down my face,
tears of joy at the redemption seen at the cross.
Again you call and reach out; I reach up to You.
You take me up into an embrace, healing and erasing all.
You send me out on your breath, to speak love and healing in Your Name.
———————————————————————————
I feel your presence within me and around me.
You speak to my heart, to the me You created.
I look through new eyes, “spiritual eyes”
I see the hurt and pain in your children.
I drop to my knees in intercession words streaming from my lips.
The stream comes faster and faster
I no longer recognize my own words.
This language does not feed the mind
But my soul is full up with the Lord.

A thought…

As Christians, we are called to a different economic reality. Once we really discover how to love our neighbour as ourself, capitalism as we see it won’t be possible, and marxism won’t be necessary.

Thoughts, comments?

Where did he go…?

So, an explanation for my recent absence. Two words: final papers.

Life is uber-busy, but I am surviving… barely. This past weekend we had 74 teens come to Wycliffe College to participate in the 30 Hour Famine. Faculty and students from Wycliffe, as well as some leaders from youth groups across the city, led the weekend event. It was a smashing success, and the group raised $10,722.35!!!! Soooo great! It was a fun weekend, and I learned that teens from Toronto are generally the same as teens from New Brunswick. Except the teens here love sushi a lot.

In other news, the countdown is on for my return to New Brunswick. We are at 13 sleeps! Yeah, I am pumped! Could you tell? 3 papers and one week-long intensive class, then I am home home home for the summer. I can feel the sun on my face and the breeze rolling across my skin as I lay in the field at Camp Medley.

In keeping with my promise to add a little something to watch or listen to with each post, I have an awesome song for you folks this post. The Constantines and Feist doing a cover of Islands In the Stream, originally done by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers.
Perez Hilton is hosting the song on his site, and to listen just click HERE!
You will not be disappointed.

P.S. - I suppose this now makes it known that I check Perez Hilton. Don’t hold it against me, I just need some celeb gossip and sweet songs every now and then. Sue me!

Whirlwind weekend…

What a weekend! I have been going non-stop since Thursday, and it is starting to catch up with me.
I flew home to New Brunswick on Thursday evening. Interviews for positions at Camp Medley were held this weekend, so it was decided that the assistant director should again be on the interviewing committee. I was happy to do my part. So, I flew into Fredericton Thursday night where I was picked up by Kurt Goddard, Jen Whelly, and Leah Gallant. After dinner at the Dip, and an appearance at Survivor night, I went to Mallory’s to do laundry and then to Kurt’s for sleep.

Interviews started the next day in Fredericton. I had lunch at Swiss Chalet with Kurt, Jen Whelly, and Jen MacMullin, then headed to Synod Office for interviews. We interviewed from 2:00pm until 9:00pm. Then it was off to Micah and Alastair’s apartment for Leah’s French Canadian Birthday Party. Lots of poutine, wine, and cigars. A smashingly wonderful night.

Saturday brought more interviews in Saint John. I was picked up at 7:00am and headed to SJ with Liz, George, and Ann. We interviewed from 8:00am until 5:30pm. Again, a very long day. Then back to Fredericton for coffee with Val Archibald (Hi Val!) and a night of playing cards at Kurt’s place. Also, a brief trip to the new nightclub/McDonald’s restaurant in Fredericton. So bizarre!

Sunday I got to head to CCPC for church, and it was great to see familiar faces from last year. (I miss having a home church, and am looking forward to next year in Toronto when I will have one church to attend for a whole year.) More interviews in the afternoon, and then an hour and a half to deliberate on who was going to get hired. Liz drove me back to SJ Sunday evening, and I got to go out for dinner with my parents and Jill & Bronwyn Atkins. Mmmmm, thai food.

Spent this morning with mom, had lunch with Martha, got my haircut, then it was time to head to the airport to fly back to Toronto. What a weekend! Only 3 more weeks in Toronto, then back to NB for the whole summer. Praise the Lord!

Today I am going to leave you with a video that I found on YouTube, and it is pretty wonderful. Check it out, and then check out Lucy’s other videos at her YouTube page by clicking here!

Church of England…

… according to Eddie Izzard.

Hello world…

Well, first post in a new blogging community. Hello WordPress, my name is Adam!

School is almost over for the year. Where has the time gone? This year has probably been the most challenging year of my life, and yet I have learned so much and made so many new friends here in Toronto. I feel like nothing this year has been a waste, that I have taken away life lessons from every experience, both negative and positive.

I am back to New Brunswick this summer for another summer as assistant director at Camp Medley. I am actually flying home this Thursday for a weekend of interviewing potential counsellors. I might be able to find some time for festivities while I am home, as there are birthdays to be celebrated.

Funny quotes from today:

“They are wrapping their relationship in sin!”

Thanks to Mallory for the quote. You are such a wonderful friend, and you constantly amuse me and make me laugh!

Also, I went to Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship this morning. Overall, it was a great service and a nice time. I did have issues with the sermon. The pastor was pretty keen on the prosperity gospel. He mentioned on a couple of occasions that if we believe in Jesus and have faith, then we will be blessed with money and a lack of sickness… I believe in Jesus and I am “poor” and sick at the moment. I am all for praying for good health and financial blessings, but let’s talk about all those poor and sick Christians in the world who love Jesus with all their hearts. Please, feel free to weigh in on the prosperity gospel.

Peace be with you,
Adam O

P.S. - Each post, I am going to leave you with a video or a link that I feel you should check out. Sometimes it will be a singer or band, sometimes it might just be something I like. This week I am leaving you with a link to two lovely songstresses. Here are a couple of videos from Basia Bulat and Christine Fellows.

New blog!

In the spirit of blogging anew, I am moving to WordPress.
Come visit me there, by clicking on this post!

Learning it all again…

So, I really feel that starting to blog again will be good for me. It is, after all, an easy way to keep people from home and abroad up to date with my life. Facebook is great and all, but there is only so much I can convey on facebook. So, here I am, crawling meekly back to my blog.

First year at Wycliffe is almost over. Scary to even think about! Time has flown by, and I only have a month left here in Toronto. Wycliffe has been a mixture of things that I did and did not expect to find here. Year one was pretty damn rough, but things have been getting progressively better. I am really looking forward to next year. I have been chosen as 2nd year rep on the student council, and I will be serving on the Toronto School of Theology Ecumenical Worship Committee. It will be a great year, and I am looking forward to deepening relationships I have made here.

What is this summer looking like? Camp Medley, round 5! I am back to Medley for my second year as assistant director and my fifth year on staff. I am really excited for another summer at Medley, and I am in fact flying to New Brunswick in a week to be on the interviewing board. I have good feelings about Medley staff 2008.

That is all for now, but I assure you that I will be returning to this blog regularly in the days and weeks to come. I will leave you with an awesome song called In the Night. The song is by Basia Bulat. I love her, and you should love her too!

Inwardly digesting…

I went to an evening service at Little Trinity Anglican tonight. I think I have found a church that I will attend regularly on Sunday nights. A great service that was very multi-generational. A worship band that played beautifully and genuinely. Good teaching, and small group time to discuss the sermon! I like it a lot!

Christine, a second year here at Wycliffe, was preaching last night. She gave a great message about God’s faithfulness, even when we have been unfaithful to Him.
My small group was… interesting. There was one man who was a very staunch conservative Lutheran. He was quite antagonistic to the woman in our group who was more of a liberal. She kept going on about not judging others, while he kept saying that we are supposed to judge each other’s spirits.

He capped off the evening telling me all the things that were wrong with the service. He also shared with me that he will not take communion in any church but the Lutheran church, because in a Lutheran church everyone knows what they are receiving. He made my heart hurt. I hear a lot about the fights between extreme liberals and conservatives, but I have never seen it in church. It made it all the more real.

In happier news, I met a lovely little old Anglican lady. She was telling me that the church she attends on Sunday mornings is quite stuffy and is drying up. She says that she comes to the evening service at Little Trinity twice a month or so, to get filled up and take it back to her church. What a faithful grandma in the faith!!!

So, I am left inwardly digesting my Little Trinity experience. A wonderful experience that made me hurt for the Church.