... through the dark punk rock clubs of one thousand american towns.

A visual aide, to show how much of North America I've traversed - most of this is in the past two years. Actually, I have been in every province from the west coast of BC to the east coast of New Brunswick in 2011 - all but Alberta in the past two months...

Not as fun as it sounds, but hey, it's an experience.

Too bad I spent so much of my time floating around on this continent, when I lose my cheap flights come September.

Where the healing begins.

On 1 AM Wednesday morning, I touched down at YVR for the second time in a month - this time, to stay. I don't know that I've ever had a season so rough as the one I'm in now, and there came a point in this dark, damaging time that I knew I needed to release my grip on all my hopes, plans and dreams for the summer and come "home" - an ambiguous, confusing term, which here refers to British Columbia. My focusing in coming back is to recover, to heal, from what has been the most exhausting, confusing, challenging, frustrating, heartbreaking time of my life. Doors have opened here in BC that were previously closed, and just in time. I am filled with hope and a sense that this is the will of the Lord for me this summer, and while there is a disappointment in letting go of plans and dreams I'd long cherished, there is also such a peace and joy that comes with the confidence that I am walking in the will of the Father (not that I was avoiding his will before - I was earnestly seeking it out, but simply could not see it clearly).

Coming home on Wednesday meant something sweet - I could go downtown for game 7! I've only this past year really started to watch/play/appreciate hockey (in each case, quite casually), but I thought it would be a really cool experience to celebrate what would hopefully be the first Stanley Cup win for the Vancouver Canucks. I really love Vancouver (though, as you can read here, I have wondered at that love and the nature of this city, ever since me and James' formative reading break adventure in November of 2009) and to celebrate with the rest of the province on my first day back seemed an exciting way to kick-off my summer of restoration.

I was horrified and confused, then, at what transpired instead. From where I was watching the game downtown erupted a chaos unlike anything I'd seen - and thankfully, some of which I only saw through media, and not with my own eyes. The Vancouver riots were disgusting, as anyone who has watched CTV or Global in the past few days is well aware of. What started with fires and fist-fights ended up a bloody mess of millions of dollars in destroyed property, four stabbings and one man thrown off the viaduct. People who tried to do good, police and civilians alike, were mobbed and beaten cruelly for their efforts. The VPD fought back with tear gas and rubber bullets. Transit systems were locked down for the most part, and the madness spilled onto the SkyTrain. Being in this chaos, unsure of how to safely get home, was a draining and unforeseen experience that I wish I could un-live.

But the worst part of this was the way that the so-called "small group of criminals" were surrounded by hundreds thousands of cheering supporters. The way that the moral fortitude of those around me caved, and lawlessness and destruction were embraced; it was entertaining, fascinating, even worthy, apparently, of praise and adoration. I couldn't sleep when I got back to Braden's house - the sounds and sights of it all played through my mind at a subconscious level, and the next day, seeing footage on the news of the morally upright being brutally beaten for taking a stand, I felt overwhelmed and nauseated.

Experiencing a trauma was not what I had hoped for on my first day back in BC, but already the Lord is using it to make his goodness known. Following the riots, a time when I was surrounded by so many people embracing godlessness, it was relieving to arrive home and see that the majority of Vancouverites, and people all over, were disgusted with the events as well. Onlookers back home did not find it to be excellent or praiseworthy. The amount of love and support that have poured out, in the amount of people helping clean up downtown, was incredibly heartening to see. The Canucks posted a video on their official site showcasing the clean-up efforts and heralding the beginning of a healing process.

I went downtown today with a friend who had been caught in the riot as well. We looked at boarded-up windows filled with words defying the evil that had overrun the streets a few nights prior; words of anger, yes, but more than that, of hope and love and healing. There was a police car absolutely covered in sticky-notes and letters of gratitude written by civilians. Where hate had made its mark, love spoke up louder. To see something so damaging and seemingly irreversible be redeemed gives me great hope for redemption in my heart this summer, in areas I had thought lost.

It seems to me that for both me and the city I've come home to, this is where the healing begins.

How do you recover from a night like tonight? What do you do with yourself?

I saw the streets overrun with evil. Fires, torn-up storefronts and gashed up faces, and people filming it all, delighting in it all.

The mayor has said this was a small group of criminally-intent individuals. It wasn't. It was hundreds, if not thousands, of people participating and/or spurring on participation in ripping the city to shreds.

Welcome home, Matthew.

Why I loved "X-Men: First Class".

Back in the days when Jamie Tworkowski was writing for the TWLOHA blog more often, he would occasionally write entries with titles such as "Why I loved 'Inception'", looking into where the heart of the film was, the reason he (and anybody else, for that matter) cared about it beyond the action and special effects. I always thought that was sweet and part of me wonders if what I'm about to write is very much unlike something he'd post.

Last night, me and two friends went and saw X-Men: First Class. I'm really broke right now, but I had a free movie and I had to see this one. When X-Men first came out, I was in grade four. I saw it in theatres and when it came out on VHS (wow, that's minty) I watched it over and over again the first week we had it. Now I'm a college student, and with the focus of this film being on that post-high school time in life, there was really no question as to whether or not I'd be seeing this one opening night.

Me and Travis were two of the first people into the theatre, and saved a seat for Brendan. The seats around us filled at a rapid pace and soon the place was packed. The movie actually didn't take that long to start; there weren't that many "coming attraction" previews and soon enough the feature presentation had begun.

I'll try not to spoil this too much for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. The opening scene of this film matches the opening of the very first one: a young Magneto Erik is torn apart from his mother in the herding of Jews during the Holocaust, and when he is being dragged away, his powers manifest in his desperation and rage. Where the original X-Men left off, we see more of Erik's life. The entire topic of World War II, particularly the Holocaust, hits my heart pretty hard, so it was taxing to see what this kid (fictitious or not, based in the reality of the internment camps) had to go through.

And those events defined his life. What had been taken from him, what had been done to him, they shaped him into an angry, hateful, and - underneath it all - fearful individual. As anyone familiar with the franchise knows, Erik becomes Magneto, a mutant leader who becomes, ironically, a Hitler-like figure in the majority of the comics and films. But in this film, set mostly in the 60's, he was just Erik. And cold, broken Erik is befriended by the warm-hearted and compassionate Charles Xavier, a character who can read minds.

One of my favourite plot points in this film is seen a few times in dialogue between Erik and Charles. Charles reveals to Erik that he has read his mind, seen his thoughts and viewed his memories, and Erik's response is one that I think a lot of people would have - anger. Though I think behind that anger, like I said, lies fear. He knows? He saw what happened? He's knows what I've done? What's been done to me?! I think we can all probably relate to this. Being known, really known, is scary. It means transparency. Transparency means vulnerability, and vulnerability is a terrifying thing, because it sees us - willingly or not - facing the risk of some incredibly deep hurt. What Charles says to Erik, however, is beautiful. He says he feels the pain and hurt and anger alongside Erik. He has taken it upon himself. Maybe he can't stop the suffering himself, but out of compassion andm I'd have to believe, love, chooses bears the burden voluntarily so that his friend, who has no choice in the matter, doesn't have to do so alone.

Erik is a character who spends almost the entirety of the franchise in some sort of prison. When he is young, he is imprisoned by the Nazis. For almost the entirety of rest of his life, he is imprisoned in loneliness, brokenness, pain, sorrow, anger and hatred. I hear they're doing a sequel to First Class, but I don't think we will ever again see Erik as a free man - our only glimpse of that was in this film, in the moments where he realized that Charles had seen the ugliness inside of him - the blood on his hands, and his blood on others' - and not only withheld judgement but extended compassion and an offer to suffer alongside. He wept with him. There was freedom in that, something so beautiful and brotherly in that. And they used that word, too - "brothers."

I really did love all the special-effects, the action sequences and fight scenes - they were intense. Hugh Jackman's Wolverine cameo was hilarious. And the film was as much an ensemble piece as any, with a wide range of characters beyond Erik and Charles. But I think that any movie built up on effects, humour, sex appeal, or anything else you can put in a trailer to convince people to shell out ten bucks to see a film falls flat if it doesn't have a heart to the story. There needs to be something that resonates on a deeper level with the audience. For me, I was able to relate to a couple of twenty-something mutants caught up in politics and espionage, because I was enthusiastic and understanding of the significance of their brotherhood, because I caught glimpses of something I've been blessed with as a nineteen-year-old, nomadic Bible college student - legitimate brotherhood and love that endures all things and hopes always.