cbc radio

over the summer i switched over from always having a cd in my car stereo to having it tuned to cbc radio. i love the variety of things that happen on that station--one morning it will be some bland dialogue about weeds...that evening it will be a woman recounting a time she was trapped in an underground cave for days in a narrative...the next night piano concertos...

last week as i meandered across town to pick up a coffee before work i listened to two women discussing preserves (eg: canned fruit) and i kid you not--they sounded exactly like that old snl skit. i could just picture their grandmotherly applique sweaters and mouse-brown mom haircuts as they cracked impressively lame jokes in sedated tones.

this morning i engaged an old call-in man who extolled the virtues of renting instead of owning. he thought it was wasteful and ridiculous to be old and live in a house and simply sit on a hefty pension.

yesterday i had the ol' post-church-brunch experience i've come to love with my parents and my uncle rod. i am moving to kelowna and uncle used to live there, so naturally dad (the taker-carer) had enlisted him to tell me every tiny bit of information he could think of about the place, and naturally uncle rod (the likes-to-demonstrate-vast-knowledge guy) piped up with about a zillion "tips." i guess most people would love that, but i was kind of looking forward to just going somewhere i know nothing about and figuring it all out when i got there.

i try to avoid "reviews" of what a story or a book or a movie or a person or a song or a place is "about," because i like to just experience it anew--with no expectations or preconceived notions (i don't even like movie trailers very much). i mean usually, i think people's preconceived notions are bullshit anyways. so my favorite part of the conversation yesterday had to be uncle rod's synopsis of a certain park in the city.

it began promising enough (i don't mind general/objective facts so much)--"it is a place that a lot of homeless folks hang out." of course immediately in my insides that sparks excitement and intrigue, because i remember how wonderful and interesting and kind all the homeless folks i've ever encountered have been (even the most obnoxious and drunk ones are more pleasant or at least alive than the oblivious and socially crippled suburbanites i attempt to talk to daily)...and of course immediately in everyone-else-at-the-table's insides it sparks wary insta-judgement that in turn sparks generalized comments involving "staying away from there" and several socially assigned adjectives like "sketchy" and "dangerous" and whatever else you could think of to describe characters who are written off simply by their lot in life. you know. those things parents of young ladies say that they don't necessarily mean as judgemental and unloving, but more as warnings not to hang out in the dark in city parks.

obviously i'm not going to have a campout by myself or something, and i understand smalltown mentalities and parental protectiveness...but i can't help but marvel at the way we all have become subconsciously obsessed with the preservation of ourselves.

my parents are really sweet people, but i get confused by the way they want my brother and i to "be okay." i get confused by the way the church wants its congregants to "be okay." the obsession with preservation is so ridiculously obvious in our culture (oil of olay/botox/extreme makeover/"adultlescents"/wars/arms caches/insurance/rrsps...) ... but i feel like the church kind of talks around it. like we love to hear stories of crazy faith and daring adventures and all while we're in our padded pews perusing the bulletin's paragraph about a new security system which will ensure the protection of the expensive new sound system, and deciding which restaurant to go to after...which is nothing new, everone gripes about this...but really when it comes down to it, safety is for some reason more appealing than faith. we sit safely on our savings as though we can somehow carry them with us. no one seems very interested in spending their life.

everyone looks at me like i'm crazy these days too, after they ask if i've got a job out in b.c. waiting for me. apparently wandering is so last new testament. (must be a new faux-duct-tape version come out since my generic niv that bases paul in a two-story with an suv and a sweet home church gig.) ummm...does anyone remember that the guy made a living making tents? and did ministry on his own time and dime? i just never really got this whole paid-pastoral-precooked perspective.

in the end, each day will be taken care of. and i'd be more "comfortable" on my deathbed with an empty account than a thousand things heaped beneath me.