Chicago Marriot Gingerbread Castle

So I have spent the past few days in Chicago for thier graduate and faculty ministries "Following Christ" conference, which has ben a great time (if your lucky I will have the energy later to write a summary of what I foun mot interesting at the conference). There was this 1000 lb gingerbread castle in the hotel lobby.

Lucey's Christmas

Here are a Couple of Photos of the Huffman's Cat Lucey. Merry Christmas!

Doing the Ducks

No description of my (Rachel's) life would be complete without frequent mention of the ducks. Every morning and night for the last thirteen and a half years (with a few pauses due to illness, vacation, or moves to White Rock), I have taken care of them, giving them food and water, letting them out in the morning and putting them up at night. Somewhere a few months ago, I estimated my total number of duck-doing expeditions to be around 10,000 (math nerds can correct that if need be). Now, home in Colorado Springs from White Rock, I have the immense privilege of caring for my last remaining duck, the beautiful, lively Mitt, who doesn't like eating, does like drinking her water, and has yet to molt this season. Here, for your viewing privilege, is a step-by-step presentation of putting the little Mitten to bed.

Getting Warm Water


The One, The Only: Mitt


Rachel and Mitt Share a Tender Moment


All Put up and Safe for the Night


Feathers!

Ducks on the Bay

Rachel has mentioned in previous posts that one of our perpetual activities is walking out on the peer, where we get to enjoy the overwintering ducks. Here are some feeble attempts at wildlife photography using my elementary camera/binoculars set up.

Some White Winged Scoters


Some Long Tailed Ducks using binoculars as a telephoto lense


White Winged Scoters Surfacing

Christmas Tree!

The Christian Paradox

It has been interesting becoming engaged within the community of Canadian Christians. Especially a community that would generally describe itself as quite conservative. But who don't comprehend the degree to which the church in the the States integrates neoliberal politics with the core of their mission. This article by Bill McKibben, an author who I am growing to respect very deeply is profound. It is an excellent discussion of the paradox between proclaimed faith of our nation and our actions. I highly recommend reading it.

Link to the article.

White Rock Thanksgiving

Daniel, Liz, and there friend Rachel, came to visit us for Thanksgiving. We had a tremendous meal and lots of fun. Here are some photos.

If you have been wondering what Andrew has been thinking about lately, here is your answer. It is the slideshow accompanying a brief presentation of the literature review I have been working on regarding my thesis project. Hope you enjoy.



If you want a higher resulution PDF, you can find it here

In other, non-Roomba-related news...

...I just applied for the position of kindergarten teacher with Lummi Tribal School. I literally sent the whole application in five minutes ago. Here's to hoping: 1) that I get the job, and 2) that the reason the last teacher quit halfway through the first semester was not bad enough to make me hate the job once I (hopefully) get it.

I am pretty excited.

I Heart My Roomba

Okay, so Andrew sent me this the other day:

http://miscellanea.wellingtongrey.net/2007/01/08/i-heart-my-roomba/

I've seen Roombas before, but my first real interactions with them began at Andrew's parents' house last summer. Those of you who have been around to watch me interact with it should appreciate this. And those of you who haven't still know how prone I am to talking to inanimate objects, giving things personalities, and so on, and should appreciate it, too.

I can't help it. The Roomba squeaks and looks confused if it runs up against anything (like a chair leg) that it can't get past, and it would be cruel not to rescue it and reassure it that it's still doing a good job. Also, if it's too far from "home" for too long, it gets depressed and died. Then, when you pick it up and comfort it and take it back "home," it makes these happy little squeaky noises that definitely reinforce the habit of treating it like a little person and making it feel better.

Okay. I'll stop now.

Church

Rachel and I have settled into attending All Saints Community Church. It is a very small (~40 people there on any given Sunday) Anglican Coalition in Canada (ACiC) church which, theologically, is to the Anglican Church of Canada as the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) is to the Episcopal Church. There is a key difference in heredity of the laity, however. The laity in AMiA is largely composed of disaffected evangelicals while, from our limited experience of ACiC the laity seem to be largely disaffected Anglicans. There is a distinctly different flavour to the service according to this. But I digress.

Let me paint a picture of a typical Sunday.
All Saints meets in a dainty little Catholic Chapel in the lazy seaside community of Crescent Beach. Small paintings of the stations of the cross hang on the walls and culminate in a 10 foot tall 'crucifix' that stands over the alter depicting our risen Lord standing triumphantly next to the cross. The priest wears white robes graced with a forest green stole.

Encased in the formal garb and traditional liturgy is a spirit and style of worship that brings me back to Hillcrest Chapel (the Assemblies of God church I grew up in) of 1992. Peter Klenner, the priest, spent much of his life in Australia, and has the accent to prove it. He preaches dynamic, interactive sermons. He shies not from discussing issues of social justice and poverty. Peter speaks plainly. He was the first person I have heard explicitly speak the equation that is really the foundation of AMiA and ACiC and that was implied in so much of the discussion from Urbana '06: “we [the Western Church] are resource wealthy and spiritually poor. The church in the developing world is spiritually wealthy and resource poor. Therefore we should give the church in the developing world the material resources necessary to teach us and others, spiritually.

The key difficulty Rachel and I have with this church is that there is one other “young” person. She is 35. We don't have many peers. So, we decided to attend the “Young Adults” service at a local evangelical megachurch in the hopes of meeting some peers. I felt strangely alien through the evening, which was filled with descriptions of the structure of the service, cliches about 'accountability partners,' 'quiet times,' 'generational differences,' 'reaching out and doing evangelism,' and the like.

When I made the observation that the content of the service seemed to be method-rich and gospel-poor as we drove home, Rachel described a profound and gripping observation. Many Evangelical churches assume knowledge of the gospel. Except when 'evangelism' is being done. Many churches have, in stark contrast to what their theology would state, created a faith of works. Accept the logical proposition “You're a sinner. Jesus died for your sins. Believe this and you'll go to heaven,” do your 'quiet times,' talk regularly with your 'accountability partners,' and you will be a good Christian. If this observation is true, there is a serious and frightening possibility that the evangelical church will die in the same way that the mainline protestant denominations have died over the past century. Let us hope this will not be the case.

We left this experience deeply grateful for the one sermon Ken Ross, the priest at The International Anglican Church in Colorado Springs, always preached. Jesus died. Jesus rose from the dead. That changes everything!

Storms!

So, winter has arrived, and storms have arrived with it. And we, here on Marine Drive, have front-row seats to storms from the south.

Now, I will admit right out that no storms will ever have the same place in my soul as prairie thunderstorms in Berthoud on hot July afternoons, or really, Colorado thunderstorms at all. Mountain-prairie summer storms are in a league all their own, and are truly some of the most amazing things in the world. However, winter storms on the ocean are pretty spectacular, too. There is nothing quite like watching the sea whipped into a fury by the wind, and watching waves crash on the water, threatening to wash up onto the promenade. Couple that with a sky so fierce and thick and dark that you have to keep lights on all day, and blinding sheets of rain, and you're in for a pretty amazing show.

I have not yet acquired the degree of Northwest-ness to relish being out in the winter storms. I think the mark of a real storm-lover is that when a storm strikes, your impulse is to run out into it, rather than hide from it. That's what I do with Colorado thunderstorms. But I haven't yet reached the point where I instinctively run into the wind and freezing cold. Part of that is probably that I don't like wind and freezing cold. But also, there are things that are better to watch from the inside. You probably disagree with me if you're from the Northwest.

Also, on topic, but not quite: You know how Buttercup always says Westley has eyes like the sea after a storm? It's pretty amazing to live in a place where you know exactly what color she meant. And there truly is no other color like it.

A Rant About Gnostic Christians

I just received a forwarded email about "a town down south" where a fundamentalist church and a Catholic church have had a sign war...



I as a geologist take special offense at the statement in the second to last panel that there arn't rocks in heven. Just in case anyone is not familiar with this passage it is worth quoting Revelation 21:

"15 The angel* who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. 16The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width; and he measured the city with his rod, fifteen hundred miles;* its length and width and height are equal. 17He also measured its wall, one hundred and forty-four cubits* by human measurement, which the angel was using. 18The wall is built of jasper, while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. 19The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel; the first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, 20the fifth onyx, the sixth cornelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. 21And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass. "

This passage, for me as a geologist (and a person who takes his role as a steward of creation very seriously), is incredibly compelling, as it goes on to describe the river of life flowing from the throne of the lamb, watering a garden filled with the tree of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. I see the beauty of the created realm nourishing the souls of those in heaven. (I'm not sure whether the passage addresses the question of inherent value in these physical objects)

It is interesting how the set of signs from the (fundamentalist) Presbyterian church reveal a very strong attachment to gnostic heresy insisting that matter has no place in "heaven. " This heaven I, personally believe to be an image of the perfect creation. Creation, inherently, is of substance. My wife notes that CS Lewis suggests that often we think of the spiritual as being sub-natural when, in fact, it is of greater substance making the natural the shadow of the supernatural.

I am reminded of Andrew West's (a biologist with YWAM at University of the Nations Kona) perspective of the task of a Christian scientist to explore the creation like a little boy who has been given a toy that was lovingly crafted by his father.
"Daddy, the wheals turn"
"yes, did you notice the doors?"
"Oh, they open!"
... as the father delights in watching his child learn just how much effort went into creating the toy for the boy to enjoy.
Intricacy in nature is a gift to us from God. I look forward to getting to explore the "super-natural" landscape that includes spectacular assemblages of gems into which cities are carved... :).

PS if anyone is interested, you can find a bible study I wrote on this passage on the Sustainable Spirituality Wiki Site

So, startng my attempts to update somewhere in the vicinity of weekly...

Life hasn't been super interesting of late, but if I'm going to update regularly, it's important to do it on "boring" days, too (right Sarah?).

Cold and winter have officially come to White Rock. It's rained pretty hard for a few days, and it isn't raining now, but it is windy and looks chilly and the waves are pretty big outside the window. The boardwalk and pier are pretty tourist-free, and only diehard locals like ourselves are venturing out for walks. Daylight savings time ended on Sunday, which means that it's getting much darker when Andrew comes home, and that the Amtrak goes by in pitch darkness. We've watched it get darker and darker every night as the Amtrak goes by. It's kind of depressing.

My current favorite thing to do out on the White Rock pier is feed seagulls. Unfortunately, no birds have been coming to my feeders. At all. This is terribly depressing, but we do have plenty of seagulls. I tried to save scraps, duck-bowl style, and take them out to the seagulls and crows, but unfortunately, the vegetarian duck-bowl fare didn't do much for carnivorous scavengers. So duck-bowl food is now just compost, and food I couldn't put in the duck-bowl becomes seagull food. Like shrimp tails, for instance. Seagulls are amazingly good at catching food in midair; it's more exciting than feeding a dog. Seagulls also have incredible radar for picking up signals that someone is feeding them. For instance, last night I walked out on the pier with three shrimp tails left over from my pad thai that I got from a restaurant (I am getting pretty good at smuggling seagull edibles out of restaurants). I intentionally chose a seagull sitting by himself, knowing that I didn't want to try to split three shrimp tails with a whole horde of seagulls. So I threw them out quickly and (I thought) subtly, and within three seconds I had an entire flock of seagulls--20 or 30--appearing out of nowhere and circling above me. They're pretty incredible.

There are lots of ducks out in the bay now, too. Diving ducks and dabbling ducks and occasional wandering alcids. Some of them (surf scoters) like to ride the waves during storms and fish for mollusks dredged up from the bottom. If waves go over their heads, they just dive. It's pretty incredible to watch. Mallards, on the other hand, haven't grasped the whole concept of diving and just get buffeted around, occasionally losing their balance rather awkwardly in the waves. It's pretty hilarious to watch.

I did officially turn down the job I was offered. It was only an hour a week, with half-day sub jobs when available, and it just wasn't going to be enough money. So I am back to "normal" subbing, and will stay that way until something else comes up.

What our life looks like right now

So, we've talked to most of you who will be interested in reading this, but just for information, this is generally what our life looks like now.

Andrew is taking classes at UBC in Vancouver, which is about an hour north of us, by car. However, due to gas prices and the fact that we can only keep one car at our apartment, Andrew takes the bus, which takes closer to 2 hours to get to UBC. He goes in 3-4 days a week (3 days of classes and 1 optional lab day), usually leaving pretty early in the morning and getting back early in the afternoon. Andrew generally likes his classes, his professors, and his fellow graduate students, but I'll let him elaborate more on that. He did find out that his advisor is an extremely important person in the field, who was not expected to take on more students. He never knew this, going into school, but is quite happy to be working with him now.

After spending the summer trying to find a job in the Vancouver area, and realizing too late that it is virtually impossible to get an elementary teaching job here, much less to get an elementary teaching job without a British Columbia teacher's license, I applied for my Washington State teacher's license, and am now substitute teaching in northern Whatcom County, in the Blaine and Ferndale school districts. I have liked subbing a lot, although it has its drawbacks. I am always the stranger in a building, and I have no colleagues, and I have to establish myself as teacher with a different group of kids every single day, as opposed to having my own classroom where the kids know me and I know them. But it has been great experience, and it is nice to have a flexible schedule, and it has done quite a bit in terms of giving back all the confidence I lost student teaching. It is nice to realize that I can keep a classroom under control, and that students do listen to me most of the time. This past couple of weeks I have been working as a math teacher in the same school; they are trying to make this a permanent position and have offered me the job, but it is not enough time or money, and I don't think it's going to work out.

We are living in White Rock, BC, which is right on the ocean and right on the border (across from Blaine, Washington). It is a beautiful place to live. We found a gorgeous apartment with huge front windows that face the water, and we get to enjoy an amazing sunset every night that it isn't cloudy. The White Rock pier is right outside our door, and we take a walk out to the end of it, to watch the sunset and the over-wintering ducks, nearly every evening after I get home from work. Our apartment is a huge step up from where we lived last year! Not only do we have insolation and a working shower, but our house stays clean and we even have a dishwasher and a washing machine and dryer. It's pretty amazing. We got a lot of furniture from Andrew's parents this summer, so our house feels much more like a house and much less like a glorified dorm room.

The downside of living in White Rock is that everything is extremely expensive. I have been doing most of the grocery shopping in Blaine, where you don't pay $4 for a loaf of bread. Without our cheap little downtown restaurants that we enjoyed in Colorado Springs, we have eaten out a lot less this year. But we have discovered The Bread Box, a produce market run by a Bulgarian lady and her sons, with ridiculously cheap, amazing organic produce, and so we have been eating a lot more fresh food.

We have been attending All Saints Community Church, a small Anglican church under a Rwandan bishop (similar to our church in Colorado Springs). We like our church a lot, and we enjoy the familiarity of the worship, but we are by far the youngest people in the congregation, by an average of thirty or forty years. We are really missing having friends our age living close to us, and we have been pretty unsuccessful in meeting people. White Rock seems mainly to be a retirement community, without many young people. There have to be some of them, but we haven't really found them yet.

Well, that most of the important changes of our year to date. I will continue to keep people updated on more of the details of our day-to-day life!

Some of Andrews Summer Excitement

In early July I got the chance to attempt make an epic climb in the North Cascades of Washington. I along with a couple of my very good friends, Brian Russel and Jeff Widman, and 5 other people hiked from Ross lake, over the top of Mount Challenger, into Whatcom county, where I grew up. The first day was 14 miles, the second was much harder. And Shorter. We bushwhacked up 3000 feet of elevation and then traversed along treacherous cliff faces with stunning views into the Picket Range, beautiful ice-bound lakes and, short of our destination, stopped on a ridge around 7,000 feet just in time for sunset. The next day was the easiest of the trip. We descended onto a the Challenger glacier, and climbed it to the top of the mountain. The very top, however took some rock climbing up above two thousand feet of shear cliffs. It was pretty incredible! Back down the other side of the mountain before dinner. We were planning that the next day would be our rest day, but, we had no such luck. We were forced to climb deep into a valley and then back out in order to get past “the imperfect impasse” a gully that cleaves the side of the mountain and, to many, is impassable. Our final day was just 20 miles of hiking.... Enjoy the photos.

That is truly one of the most wonderful places I have been, and is clearly the hardest place to which I have ever drug myself.

Mr. Widman (Jeff's father) on the tip of the mountain.

One of the ice-bound lakes


Alpenglow on Challenger.

The Luna Cirque and Pickett Wall

Blog reset

We have decided that, as our wedding is in the relatively distant past, we should update our blog to reflect our current life. So here goes. We plan on updating the blog weekly or semi-weekly with pictures, stories, and anecdotes on the weather, birds, and general geography of our new home here in Canada.