Birthday Reflections

I figured my birthday is as good a day as any to be reflective.

In the last year my life has seen more change than likely ever before and I’m not likely to pull off the degree of change ever again.

• · I moved to Edmonton (New city, New roommates, New job, New church)
• · I got engaged
• · I switched undergrad schools (personally I think it’s because I’m too decisive on what I want)
• · I made it town Vancouver to experience the high point of the Olympics
• · I went treeplanting (made money, missed Heather, mangled my body, and matured spiritually)
• · Got Married.
• · Signed a one year lease on a dumpy and very nice apartment.
• · Started pounding away at school via correspondence. (everyone assumes I am super disciplined to be able to do it)

Now it seems after a year of change and turmoil I am stable. This is the place I will be for a while, these are the people I will be doing life with. I haven’t had this kind of stability in a long time. Usually used to some exit coming to look forward to in the rough times. But I’m excited for it as well.

This last week has been one of the most fun weeks in my life. I had an old friend come up and hang out for a while. Heather and I are able to talk things out when they go sideways and just enjoy being together. Then I went to the World Water Park, learned how stream live TV over the internet and got to go to my first Oilers game.

And yet I am still not satisfied, like Bono says ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.’ Having spent the last week walking through C.S. Lewis’ classic Mere Christianity his words voice my thoughts. Even in the best possible situation we are still left with a feeling “something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality…something has evaded us.” Lewis sees this as our internal desire for Heaven. That far exceeds even the best of this world. Oh the beauty of hope beyond this broken world.

The Final Countdown

Planting days left (theoretically): 2

Days left until I am married: 40

Relationship countdowns are actually kind of funny; when you first dating you count up the months, or only six months or a year. But I actually never got to celebrate the one year of dating because I was engaged before eleven months. When you engaged suddenly your counting down. But they you get married you start counting up again but only in year increments, and (so I heard) it is critical that you don't just round the number. Another interesting tidbit is that me and Heather are getting married on 18 months of when we 'officially' started dating. Just worked out like that.

This last week of planting has been on of the hardest of my whole career and a whole new issue. I am now injured. My body has decided to tap out with only a few planting days left. Both my back and my knees are worn right out. So this week I planted very little and had to deal with the frustration of being mentally able and physically not. God has been gracious enough to show me the lesson is all this pain and frustration, that my utter most identity is not in my ability as a pounder, or my wonderful relationship, or my intellectual abilities. Rather my identity is first that I am Redeemed of the Lamb.

~CHAD

Typical

So just after I finished blogging that I will just coast the rest of the season, something snapped and I psycho pounded in my best day of the year. It was basically the perfect storm. 1) Jon our crew (and camp) highballer(person who plants the most trees) was injured 2) we were planting donkey dinks for the first time (they are called that because that's what the plugs resemble and the trees are over a foot tall, massive) 3) my biggest flaw is that I can't see the trees, but today they are a foot tall so I can see them. So I pounded like a mad man. Before this year only tree people in Nata history has planted over 2000 with donkeys. I did that and more mostly because we had nice land and a long day. And I highballed the crew which is the first time this year (and likely the last). It was a insane day and I'm happy to have today off to move camp.

Another thing of note. My abs now stick past my pecks. Too much core muscles.

~CHAD

Operation: Scare the Bear

This was a crazy week. It was my most profitable week ever as a treeplanter and I am totally checked out. Basically I have lost the ability to wreck my body to plant more trees, which is a vital skill for any treeplanter. Looks like I will be coasting for most of the rest of the year. Also my body is starting to seriously get worn down, again, happens faster every year. But I am still putting in lots of trees, turns out me going slow is faster than lots of peoples version of trying really hard.

One of the blocks we planted this week was a deep walk in a few hours in we heard a deep roar come from in the bushes (to be fair most of the block was bushes). Me and my foreman both looked at each other and then charged towards to roar which we then heard again, louder and even more unsettling. So we started yelling and heard it get farther away. Never saw it but were all fairly certain that we just scared away a Grizzly bear, which had been seen in that area previously. Epic.

We had a break in planting but it was too short so I was forced to just stay in camp. It was really hard to not get to see Heather. But I did get some good rest and Sabbath in. Spent time reflecting on the gospel. It has been really good for me to see my identity wrapped up primarily as 'Redeemed of the Lamb' and not all of the other things that I am striving to be. Humbling and good for me.

~CHAD

Still Captain Intensity

The season continues on and my internet access/creative days have not lined up until now hence the reason for my lack of blogging. So here we go.

Heather came out to visit for a few days and it was excellent. She was able to watch me pound 3000 trees one day and the next day she tired it herself. Turns out its not as easy as it looks! Even though she planted only around 200 tress I am so happy that she was able to experience the emotions associated with learning to treeplant, namely intense frustration and loneliness, mixed with fear of not doing a good job. Its a strange combination that I have found impossible to explain to people so I am glad she was able to experience a small part of what I have gone through.

So makes the name Captain Intensity so seemingly fitting for me out here? Well it actually isn't that I plant unprecedented numbers of trees, a couple guys on my crew fill that role and I just try to keep up. But I do things that no one else does like slam the same rocky spot no less than four times before giving up. And just yesterday i spent most of the day planting a ridiculously brushy hillside that most people would have just gone around. Namely my foreman planted around it because in his eyes it just wasn't worth planting through. Another one of my roles on the crew is that I am the stacker/organizer of the back of the truck, because I am faster and more aggressive with the boxes than everyone else.

One of the things I have been dwelling on out here is, not surprisingly, marriage. As of right now me and Heather have read through significant parts of six different marriage books. Which might be more than most married people have read. We have found all of them helpful in different ways. I'll do some one liner book reviews for you.

The Five Love Languages - simple and helpful in not wasting efforts of things that will not be valued

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus - This is the only non-Christian book we read and it was actually the most helpful. It is a thorough guide to the communication styles of men and women. It has saved us from than a couple fights.

101 Questions to as Before you Get Engaged - This is a workbook, is a good springboard to discussions. But should be started way before commitment starts in the relationships. We read it when we were already very much on that trajectory.

God, Marriage and Family - This is a theological tomb on the biblical basis for all topics regarding marriage. It is so good to have this biblical foundation. The topics that were most helpful to me were 1) marriage as a covenant rather than a contract and 2) the spiritual warfare aspect of marriage.

Preparing for Marriage - We used this workbook for our premarital counseling. It is good for leading out discussions

Love and Respect - I just finished this book and found that it is starts with a simple concept (Women want love and men want respect) which he then beats to death by repetition. But it true and his practical out-workings are very helpful and his final chapter has beautiful theology.

And with all this knowledge about marriage it is frustrating that I am still clueless to most things about marriage, because I am just not married yet. Oh I can't wait. Soon.

~CHAD

Disconnected Thoughts

So we have finished our Prince George contract, which gets shorter and shorter every year. In my first year I remember it taking forever and me doing horribly. But this year it was only three shifts and I am able to coast to decent numbers. Will need to work to push myself to find the mental zone to pound.

One of the major differences coming into this season is that I got laser eye surgery and don't have glasses. Which should be a major plus, but it has brought unexpected consequences. The surgery was not a complete success and I have go for 'enhancement' which is their fancy phrase for a do over. So seeing tree is a big of a challenge as always because my vision is a little worse than it was when I had glasses. But something I didn't account for is that glasses protect my eyes. I get hit in the face a lot with branches and other larger shrubberies in my unnecessarily aggressive planting style. Also the bugs were so bad that mosquitoes would land on my eye and I would catch them with my eye lid. Strangest sensation ever.

What is the deal with white bread? Isn't this something that is for babies who are picky? But at camp they have white bread and people will make their lunch with it. This amounts to nearly a crime in my mind. Here have some bread without all the important parts of the bread. Bizarre.

I also realize that I am currently living in four different places. I have stuff at my parents house, my roommates are storing most of my stuff, Heather has my more important stuff, and I have all my camping equipment in the bush. I feel very much not all in one place. I know life is more that stuff but I can't wait to get all my stuff in one place and live there and be married. And just be stable for a while. Will be a big change for me.

~CHAD

Life and Times.

So I thought that talking about the weather was a Saskatchewan pastime until I moved to Alberta and it turns out it everyone just talks about the weather, for lack of anything to really say. That is a strange lead up to what I am about to talk about, you guessed it the weather.

Weather happened in treeplanting. The first day I sunburned that mess out of my ears and back of my neck. Who knew the first day was going to be that hot? And it was hot all week. This week it freaking snowed. And not just a little, there was an inch of heavy, wet snow and it was snowing like a blizzard. It snowed until eleven and rained hard the rest of the day. Luckily I kept my core warm and my feet dry but all my other parts were freezing. At one point I was convinced, in my happy state of mind, that my hands would never get their feeling back. But I got through it and was successful that day. One plus side of the snow is that I assumed that it would kill all the bugs. Nope, not at all. Two days later the bugs were back redoubling their efforts to touch my face. Oh how that drives me nuts.

In spite of the weather I have been able to do some serious thinking. Aside from missing my beautiful Heather, so much I’ve been forced to re-examine much of my spiritual life. Another Puritan prayer that has stuck with me like a punch to the face is this:

My sin is not so much this or that particular evil,

But my continual separation, disunion,distance from thee

And having a loose spirit towards thee

~CHAD

Thy Wiser Determinations.

So as I hope your aware I'm going back treeplanting for a third year. Yup just can't help it. A lot has happened in my life this last year. I'll try to catch you up.

• I switched to correspondence for the rest of my degree.
• I got laser eye surgery, and no one told me it was going to be that painful.
  
• I moved to Edmonton, Alberta to live closer to Heather.
• I got a job as a finisher in a cabinet shop.
  
• I started attending Central Baptist Church, and a pastor agreed to mentor me.
  
• I got engaged.
• I switched schools. (I am now at Briercrest, again through correspondence.)
• I got stitches for the first time.
  
• I managed to be in downtown Vancouver to watch the Gold Metal Game with a mob.
• I quit my job at the cabinet shop, hopefully I'm done working with kitchen's for a while...
  

So life is not boring and I seem to naturally rebel against stagnation and idleness.

A prayer that I recently read very much sums up my thoughts on my current life situation of leaving to treeplant right before my wedding in August

If it be consistent with thy eternal counsels,
the purpose of thy grace,
and the great ends of thy glory,
then bestow upon me the blessings of
thy comforts;

If not, let my resign myself to
thy wiser determinations.

~The Valley of Vision (a Puritan prayer book)

~CHAD