It's been an eventful weekend. I decided this summer I was going to go trail riding at The Ranch, and finally I booked a two-hour advanced ride for this past Friday evening. It was a perfect day, and the ride was idyllic, a challenging but beautiful meander through fields, woods, steep river banks, and the riverbed. To make it more exciting, my horse, Cisco, a flea-bitten grey, suddenly decided to throw a little bucking fit for no apparent reason. I've sat a lot of bucking in my day, but my seat isn't what it used to be, and this was completely unexpected. I went flying and hit my bum, then my (thankfully, helmeted) head. After lying still to assess the damage I realized that a) I was in one piece and b) I'd kept hold of the reins, something I was inordinately proud of. The guide offered to switch horses with me, which turned out to my advantage. His horse, a big Appaloosa, had much smoother gaits than Cisco and was calmer, so the ride ended peacefully with a magnificent moon rising over the cool summer twilight. Apart from a fair amount of soreness (much of which is simply due to not having ridden regularly in ten years), some scrapes and bruises, I'm fine.

However, my brain was perhaps rattled more than I realized, because after being kindly given a ride to the bus stop I simply got on the first bus that appeared. The driver turned out to be a horse person, so we chatted happily for several moments before I suddenly saw a sign for Hamilton. I live in Toronto. I pointed this out to the bus driver, who said "Oh! I wondered why you were going to Hamilton when you told me you lived in Toronto." There was nothing for it at that point but to keep going, so she took me into Hamilton and told the next driver for Toronto to allow me on without paying extra fare. She was really a very nice person.

While waiting for the bus in Hamilton, a young Philipina girl with a suitcase came and sat next to me. We started talking, and before long she was pouring out her story. She'd left a nannying job in Hong Kong because she heard Canada would allow her to sponsor her family, but she'd ended up imprisoned by an abusive employer who threatened her and took her money and her belongings. One night she managed to sneak to her employers' computer while they were downstairs and send a quick email to a friend. The friend contacted the police, and eventually she was rescued and taken to a shelter. Now she was headed to Toronto to find another job. She was a Christian, and her faith and hope in God remained strong despite what she'd been through. She encouraged and challenged me, and I was able to help her find her way from the bus to the train and then to the subway in Toronto. Perhaps she was the entire reason I'd taken the wrong bus...God has reasons for such twists and turns in our lives.

Most of the rest of the weekend was taken up with entertaining three visiting French girls. One is staying for a semester at the University of Toronto, the other two are friends who'd come along to see her settled in. They were beautiful people, and it was a lovely reminder of how deep and immediate our fellowship in Christ is even with Christians we've never met from the other side of the world. I've experienced it many times with Christians from many different parts of the globe, and it's always wonderful.

But it's very late, and I'm up too late as usual. Tomorrow's another day, and another recreation day as our church is going to the beach. One of these days I'll actually get some work done...

Yesterday I had a job interview. It was at the headquarters for a family of luxury hotels, an extremely posh office located in Toronto's downtown financial district. The interview went ok. We'll see where it leads, but I have a feeling that kind of corporate culture and I aren't really a great fit.

On the way back, I decided to stop at a coffee shop. Although normally I don't do this, I felt a strong need for a caffeinated beverage and some time to contemplate. I popped into my favourite downtown yarn store and then the cafe a few doors down. I'd brought my knitting, so I pulled it out and began to work.

Knitting in public provokes a lot of reaction. I've never had so many conversations with strangers as since I took it up more seriously and began knitting on public transit. It seems to fascinate people, and it's rare that I don't get at least one comment.

This was no exception. I looked up at one point to see a woman outside the cafe looking at me intently through the window. She looked away when I spotted her, but a few minutes later the door opened and I looked up to see her approaching me. After introductions she said, "Can I ask you a favour?"

"Sure, I don't know if I can do it, but you can ask."

"Can you help me with my knitting? Someone promised me she would help me, but I've been waiting and she never did."

"No problem, go and get it and I'll help you."

She disappeared out the door with effusive expressions of gratitude, and I carried on knitting. While she was away, a guy walked by the window of the cafe, did a double take, came in, and asked about my knitting. He'd just bought the same needles I was using and wanted tips on how to use them. We chatted for a while, and then my original lady showed up again. While the three of us were talking, the guy let it drop that he'd studied theology. It isn't every day you meet that sort of rare bird, so I quizzed him and it turned out we had several friends in common.

He soon had to leave for a class, but the lady and I carried on. As I helped her cast on and decide how many stitches she wanted for the scarf she was making, she told me about her life. She was staying in the shelter across the street, but hoped to move back to her family home in Markham where she'd raised her children. Her daughter was in university and her son had just passed his entrance exams, so she was very proud. She had MS and had been paralyzed from the waist down for a time. She'd taken up knitting in an effort to keep her hands nimble.

It wasn't long before I had to go, but before I went, I prayed for her, physical, spiritual and mental healing, blessing, and a place to live, and invited her to church. She thanked me over and over and left beaming with joy. I left beaming with joy and thanking God. Honestly, there's no better feeling, no greater natural high, than feeling his love pour out through you to someone else.

As I walked home, I thought back to the interview. One of the interviewers had asked, "As you look back, what would you say is your greatest success? It could be work-related or non-work-related." I'd given some BS answer about delivering a website a client was happy with. Now, I realized that answer was a lie. My greatest success is when I love. My most triumphant moment is when I allow God to pour through me to bring blessing and healing to someone else.

The interviewers also asked that standard question: "Where do you see yourself in 5 years? What would be your ideal job?" I answered carefully that my ideal job would be exactly what I'm doing: designing websites. Even then, I knew that was only partly the truth.

If I could pick where I'd be in 5 years, it would be bringing God's healing and love to the poor and the broken. It would be pouring my life out to see them live. It would be living fully immersed in the kingdom of God. It wouldn't be stuck in an office pounding out websites.

How can you say that in an interview? You can't, I guess. But it struck me again how opposite the values of the kingdom of God are to the world's values. How upside-down the kingdom Jesus announced is. It's a kingdom where polish, professionalism, class, and appearances mean nothing. It's a kingdom where loving a poor old homeless woman with MS in a cafe is actually most important.

I know which one I'd rather be giving my life to.

Last night, I was sitting outside knitting. I was waiting until a specified time when I was supposed to meet someone at their apartment, so, having arrived early I did what I always do when I have a knitting project on the go and a bit of spare time: pulled it out and started working.

Suddenly I heard, "That is the cutest thing I have ever seen!"

I looked up, confused. An extremely good-looking Chinese guy was standing there smiling at me. Tall, well built, very cute.

"What, knitting?" I laughed.

"Knitting in front of an apartment building. What are you doing here?"

We started chatting and exchanging flirtatious banter. I have to admit it was a bit flattering: it's been a long time since a cute guy flirted with me.

"So, tell me something about yourself," he invited.

"Well, I knit."

"I know that! Tell me something I don't know."

I paused for a moment. I had a choice. Do I tell him the most important thing about myself, something guaranteed to stop the flirting and frighten him away, or do I give in to the flattery and say something lighthearted and inconsequential?

"I'm a Christian," I said.

His smile froze. He went silent. He looked at me warily.

"I thought I'd tell you the most scary thing about me," I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

"That is scary," he said. "Are you, like, a hardcore Christian? I've had a lot of conversations with hardcore Christians, because I'm a Buddhist."

"Oh yeah?" I asked him a few questions about his Buddhism, and he asked me about my Christianity. I told him what it meant to me to be a Christian. I left him with a card from my church with my phone number on it.

Somehow, I don't think I'll be hearing from him. But hopefully, the conversation meant something more than a random flirt. Hopefully, God's on his case and tracking him down. I don't know. I prayed for him.

Sometimes being a Christian is harder than others. Like, scaring away the first cute guy in ages to flirt with you by talking with him about Jesus. It hardly qualifies as suffering for the gospel. Nonetheless, I have to admit that there was a little twinge of regret. Ah well. Maybe I can start up a ministry: street evangelism to cute guys. With knitting.

I got onto the subway car. I sat down in the only available seat, next to a very sunburnt, red-skinned man in a wife-beater and jeans. I immediately semi-regretted it. He apparently hadn’t showered or applied deodorant recently.

He turned to me. “Pretty cool on the subway,” he said.

I agreed. “Cooler than outside.”

He laughed. “I might just ride the subway all day.”

“That’s one way to stay in the air conditioning.”

“Cheaper than air-conditioning your house.”

I agreed, and there was a pause.

“I’m going to the Writer’s Guild at U of T,” he told me.

“Sounds interesting. What happens there?”

“It’s for writers. People who write poetry and fiction. They get together and critique each others’ work. I pretty much have to go there every Friday. This week, Maggie McDonald is going to be speaking. In honour of her, I bought 5 liters of wine and 10 pounds of smoke—“ I thought he was going to say “smokes”, but he continued “d oysters, and five different kinds of black olives.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“Yeah, and I got these!” He reached into his bag and pulled out a bag of tortilla chips. “They’re called ‘Scoopers’. You can see how you could put a smoked mussel into the center, like that…”

“Smoked mussels, I’ve never had those before,” I said.

“Smoked oysters, I mean,” he amended.

“I’ve never tried those either.”

My stop was announced, and I got up. “This is my stop, take care,” I said.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a pink-and-white box, which he thrust at me. “Here, take these,” he said. I looked at them. It was a box of smoked oysters.

“Why?” I protested, but he insisted. “Just take them!”

I got off the train and left the station, unable to stop laughing, with a pink-and-white box of smoked oysters in my hand. The city is such a strange place sometimes.

The smoked oysters were disgusting. But it makes a good story, and it was certainly a kind gesture.