Business Solutions: The Ass Copier

Business Solutions: The Ass Copier Bizarre!

"Nondiscipleship is the elephant in the church."

- Dallas Willard

From Boys to Men

A good picture of four rock 'n'rollers who have grown up together and intend to grow old together. A bit of the human side of U2.

From Jann Arden's Desk

Got this from Jann Arden's site today. It's a bit long, but beautiful.

When Vancouver gets cold, the weary stumble out onto the streets. I walked home last night after having had dinner with Russ, Nikki (baby Ike of course) and her friend Cara, weaving my way through at least a dozen young people squatting on blankets with bedraggled dogs seated loyally beside them. I had a box of pizza under my arm and a bottle of wine in a bag I was taking to a friend. A thin, smiling girl said, "Are you being careful with that?" The wine I assumed, as she was just outside the liquor store hoping to score some change. "Yes", I said "as careful as one wants to be." I smiled back at her.
She said, "God bless you, my dog’s name is Charity."
"Is Charity old?" I asked.
"Yeah, she's seen it all."
She didn't ask me for money, but I felt compelled, well not compelled – wrong word – I don't know what I felt, but I gave her 10 bucks. "You're kidding." she said. Charity the dog wagged her tail as if to say thank you also. She had two stainless steel bowls; one for water and the other full of canned food – as happy as happy can get I suppose. I had a lump in my chest. I prayed quietly in my head. "Have a great night." The girl called out as I walked away. Charity wagged like mad.

I literally walked two more blocks, crossed the street at Gravely and Commercial and passed another little girl – I say little girl as she weighed no more than a hundred pounds, with lead shoes on. She was about twenty and held a cardboard sign up, but I couldn't quite make it out. As I passed, she too said "God bless you". (No one deserves that many blessings in a single night.) I called back to her and she turned towards me as I asked, "Excuse me, do you need some money?" She looked like a rainbow had suddenly wrapped itself around her shoulders. "Yeah, I am a backpacker staying at a hostel, but they charge twenty dollars a night. I'm just trying to get the money together so I can go to bed." I fished out my wallet and found an American ten from my trip to Europe. God knows why...anyhow. I handed it to her and she whispered a grateful "Thank you".
"Take care of yourself.” I said, “Get some rest."
"I will." she said.

It somehow made me feel euphoric to see a couple of blessed smiles. The moon seemed brighter. I prayed in my head to a God I am not even sure exists. It makes me sad that I don't always believe in an Almighty grace. God knows I try. It's hard to believe in good things when you pick up the morning paper in an unchanged world. All I know is that when a complete stranger blesses you, it's darn near as good as God, if not maybe even kinda somehow actually Him. Well it could be. You never know. You wonder if God doesn't check up on us dressed in other people's clothes, just accessing how we're doing, seeing If were even the least bit good or not. Testing us. You wonder.

I felt lighter somehow, walking the rest of the way home. Everything was so clear. It was so quiet. I was in slow motion counting breaths. Cars went by silently. There was no wind, no sky, just clouds under my feet and a feeling of well being. Helping others is a reward bigger than one often imagines. Philanthropy is giving when you have nothing; that's when it counts the most.

I saw two completely drunk guys sharing a cigarette beneath an old doorway. I wanted to stop and listen to their conversation. I just caught the end of one guy's sentence, "I'm gonna go over to Carol's for a bit, eh?" I walked past the words falling onto the concrete, now gone, now past.
I am in the studio today, with Russ, surrounded with flowers and candles and an endless supply of coffee and nuts and fruit and candy. I have too much. I don't deserve any of it. Luck is NOT knowing you can't do something. I do know one thing, never "Google" yourself. You may want to shoot your tits off. My pal Beth and I are going out to dinner tonight; Sushi I suspect as she doesn't eat anything with a mother. She has veggie rolls and edamame and seaweed salads and tea. I do the meat part of the deal. I'm sure she’ll have a few more tattoos to show me. We talk about music and boys and how it's hard to find a true heart. She is looking for something, although she is not too sure what. Men elude her understanding. I tell her it's not just men, it's all people. The world is like a bad mini-series right now. None of us are sure about the future so we get weirder and weirder. Her eyes are so big; they seem to be filled with tears all the time. The beauty in pain entices me more than anything glad; beautiful pain, beautiful hurt, beautiful face, beautiful earth. One day, tomorrow will not come. Who will you be, when it doesn’t? Will you be one of the good ones? I met a couple of them last night dressed like God.

A Prayer for Today (via Scott Williams)

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, superficial relationships, so that you will live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people so that you will work for justice, equality and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you will reach out your hand to comfort them and change their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with the foolishness to think that you can make a difference in the world, so that you will do the things which others tell you cannot be done.

Back from the Dead

Time has once again gotten the better of me, and my posting here is pathetic. I'll try and catch you up on what's been happening in the last couple of weeks.

1. We are in the final stages of some major home renovations. We replaces the flooring in our kitchen/living room/dining room/hallway/both entrances. After stripping off allthe previous flooring, which included three layers of lino in the kitchen, we put down what I call "poor man's hardwood". WE took G1S plywod, cut it into 6" strips, and stained it before nailing it down. We used black stain, and once down, covered it with three coats of verathane. Now we just have to put everything back, as all the contents of all those rooms had to be put elsewhere, like in the backyard.

2. We had our semi-annual Art Cafe last Thursday and Friday. Cathy and I put a lot of work into it, and we saw a lot of people come through. Check out her blog for some of the details. The people who came seemed to really enjoy it, and it's fun to see all the artists come out of the woodwork and show their stuff.

3. On Thursday night I skipped out on the art cafe to see Steve Bell in concert. He had his daughter Sarah singing with him, Mike Janzen from the Penny Merchants on piano, and Gilles Fornier on stand-up bass. It was loose and had a lot of energy. My son Dylan came with Sherryl and I, and he really liked.