i like to make myself believe, that planet earth turns slowly.

i decided part-way through tonight's events that i would have to blog it, but for reasons far more trivial and irrelevant than the story that ended up coming out of the night. i think God gives us stories worth telling, and then there are stories we think are worth telling and this is both; it starts as the latter but ends up being one that needs to be told, so please bear with the shallowest of it. it gets deeper.

i really love taking people on adventures, especially people who aren't from bc/vancouver/lower mainland. and so tonight, being privileged enough to have james, a k7 brother from ontario with me, i took him for an adventure.

and it was sweet. we borrowed allana's mom's lexus v8, we roof-jumped sfu, took sweet pictures and got all hopped up on adrenaline. the night was sweet, and had it ended there it would've been sweet enough.

then we decided to go to vancouver. as tomorrow will be all-homework, more or less, and the day after that we're peacing it back to kaleo, we had to be sure to go to van city, at least to see it. neither of us were tired (we slept till almost 2 p.m. today) and we were already in burnaby, so we drove downtown. we drove through hastings to get near robson, and we parked behind a silver car at shangri-la, and checked out robson, only to realize it was almost 2 a.m. and so the only thing open was mcdonald's and some coffee houses, and so after grabbing a white hot chocolate from blenz we headed back to the car. two guys were walking ahead of us to the car parked in front of us. long story short, it ended up being lucas grabeel from high school musical and smallville and a lot of other stuff. me and james are both pretty keen on hsm, so that was really sweet. didn't get to talk to him; we didn't recognize him until he was in his car and pulling away, but this all made the night sweeter.

then we went driving around trying our luck for further encounters of the hollywood kind, and ended up following trailers and film equipment trucks to the set of some disney movie they're filming in stanley park. we got some pictures with new york city yellow taxis. the night was getting even better.

we did some more random exploration before deciding to call it a night. here's the real story worth telling. in my attempts to drive down gastown rather than hastings, i ended up somewhere between the two, in an area very clearly belonging to the downtown east side. we passed a police station, and we passed a building called "victory house". the words stuck with me. victory on the downtown east side. it's needed. it's hell down there. we pulled to a crossing and got set to turn right. i saw a girl on the corner across from us, leaning against the wall. she can't have been twenty. i doubt she was even eighteen. she stared right into my eyes and smiled the most wrong, broken, inestimably haunting smile i've ever seen. i groaned, not out of annoyance or judgement but out of a sheer inability to put to words all that i felt in that instant. i turned right, kept going, and james had seen it too, had felt it too. before i could even begin to process it, i was stopping so that a man could cross the road. he was big, rougher-looking, and stared right at us. instinctively (and i hate this part right here) i locked my door, and told james to as well. he saw, he knew, and we sped out of there. a song came on the radio that i loved, but i turned it off. i began to pray, to talk and plead with and question and cried to God. there was nobody else to talk to, nobody else i could expect to put my desperation on. james was there, and james heard all of this, and there's something to be said about that, but i wouldn't have said the same things, my heart wouldn't have moved the same way, had i not been talking to God. i prayed the entire way home, and while it wouldn't be appropriate or perhaps possible to share it all with you in this way, please ask me about it. and, i suppose, this is my prayer right now.

Father,

i never want one of your daughters to think that i am coming for her in the way that girl i can only imagine was thinking i was coming for her. i never want, for one second, for anyone to think that i'm driving downtown at night to pay a girl to tolerate me thieving something of inestimable value from her. i don't want to lock my door and force an identity on someone i don't even know, to accuse them of motives that they may or may not have. i don't want to lock the doors and reinforce racial or class divides, i don't want to condescend and i don't want to add to someone brokenness like this. i want none of this. only You can save the downtown east side. only You. on the same street that victory was pronounced would You please bring victory that we cannot. keep my heart soft and breakable; it's been so hardened to all of this for far too long. let me not run from these daunting battles against lies and brokenness and drugs and poverty and homelessness. it would be a lie to run away.