I am actually quite normal, thank you.

I find myself in a very ungrateful position, but it really must be said: I am getting quite weary of being told how amazing and/or incredible I am. Now, before you think that I'm that narcissistic that this is not enough for me, or something, there are a couple of components to this complaint.
One, there are a terribly large lot of women that I think are really quite amazing in their own rights. Women who do incredibly generous, skillful, talented things. I don't really think that I'm much better than many other women that I know of. I think, actually, that there are lots of other more fantastic things that other women I know are involved in and do - from freeing trafficked girls, to ministering to prostitutes, to organizing international conferences, to doing research, to speaking out against injustice in all its forms, to publicly role model for change, to changing policies, hearts and minds every day. That's amazing.
Second, I'm not sure that what I do is particularly amazing, per se, or if it's actually normal. We've been given finite amounts of time in this life, and we have been called to be ambassadors for Christ, so how does this excuse us to sit in our cubicles all day, go home to make supper and then sit around and watch TV? We have all been called to be and do so, so, so much more than this, such that, most of what I do, I feel, is not even maximizing the opportunity or the choice of what I am able to do in this world. We have all been given so very much, that wasting one's life on the trivial, the mundane, or the useless just seems, well, pathetic and wasteful.
Third, the other big issue is that I have only ever heard this from the mouths of other women. I have yet to hear that kind of validation regularly from men. I hear it quite a lot from women, over and over and over again. I am deeply appreciative, but I think women inherently recognize and validate worth when they see it, and attempt to dignify it by elevating it when it is needed. It would be nice to hear that kind of validation from the other side, as it's hard to know: Is it because I really don't deserve the accolades at all, or it's not recognizable and thus doesn't deserve validation, or it would just be too darn hard for men to actually dignify the women amongst them?

On a completely different note

I'm realizing there are a scant few people that I know are regular readers of this blog. However, I do note that there are quite a few regular perusers, but I have no idea who they are, and many of them are right within my area code!
Please do drop a line, and let me know if you're reading - it's awfully encouraging to know that someone's paying attention out there!

Bring Food Home

I haven't had much to write on, or at least anything that I'd be willing to post in public, for the last little while. However, I thought I'd muse on a very inspiring conference that happened two weeks ago now. Farmers, food activists, community advocates and others came together to talk about food in a new way. I think there was some real momentum there from everyone attending.
Since then, I've read in several newspapers of the rather depressing rightward-leanings that Canadians are heading to (which always happens whenever there's an economic recession - don't get me started on right-wing economical policies, 'cause that will just get me really upset), and the inevitable 'bubble' that's about to burst of the local foods/local economies movement.
However, it does point out to me the lack of broad-based appeal that's inherent in many social justice movements. One of the discussion groups I was participating in was the very real issue of racial diversity (or lack thereof).
Inevitably, the reality is that the majority of farmers in this country are white. There are many immigrants who wish to farm, but, due to their lack of capital, cannot invest in farmland (who can? Even young farmers I know can only dream of owning their own farm, mainly because of heartless, greedy developers and inane, thoughtless politicians) to pursue their dream of farming. Also, many ethnicities in the city participate in urban agriculture, though they would never label it as such, and to bring them to the table to broaden the scope of how food reaches us and our plates, would be awesome. There's also the reality that many of the people participating in social justice movements are those people who have already secured their wealth and their positions in society, or they are the children of those very same.
There's also the very real, and very scary, trend that second generational people move to the suburbs. They buy big homes. They buy big cars. They live the big life, far from soil, and land, and sky, and air. They live disconnected from the reality of good, strong earth, and live wired to concrete and fibre-optic lines.
As I always say, the biggest hurdle to overcome is this one. The reason why immigrants come here is so that their children will have big houses and big money and big comforts. "Besides, if I wanted to live in high-density housing, grow my own food and ride my bicycle everywhere, I would've stayed in my village in (fill in the blank country here)".
But this is the problem: those countries developed high-intensity networks to house, feed and transport people out of necessity. We are talking about doing that, not out of necessity, but to prepare for the inevitable reality that we will eventually have to. Until people of my socio-economic demographic start realizing that we are part of the problem, we won't participate in the solutions...

Going through open doors

This whole concept of God "opening doors" is not very clear to me. I think sometimes it's a fallacy, really - just because everything happens to be going your way doesn't necessarily mean that it's the right way to go. I mean, broad is the path that leads to deception and all.
I find myself talking with the same vocabulary of looking to see if 'barriers fall' or 'doors open' when looking for things that are 'meant to be' or 'in God's will'. However, I don't necessarily think it's as easy as that. If life was super easy, and all one had to do was go along the path of least resistance, then shouldn't life be way less complicated than it really is? It almost sounds zen or new age-y when you talk that way, about following the path of least resistance, but for some reason, we talk the same reasoning, but use different semantics. Strange.
That being said, I too, over the past few days had been looking for 'doors to open' in order to follow what I really wanted to do. Seven, in fact. And, each of them had given way, one by one, over the short span of 36 hours, allowing me to be free to go. Go where? I'll report on that later...