Who Sinned Here?

One of the greatest scandals of Jesus' life came out of a simple kindness.  He and his followers came across a man who had been born blind in John 9.  The followers had a simple question to ask their teacher:  "Who sinned here?"  They wondered whose fault it was that the man had been born with a disability.

The ancient world believed that hardships such as illness, tragedy, disability and poverty were not accidents or random events.  Instead they were the judgement of God visited upon the offenders.  But if this man was born with a disability, was it because he had sinned before he was born...or God knew he was going to sin...or was it the fault of the parents and the Almighty was punishing their child for their deficiencies?  Whose fault was it that this man had to suffer so?

Jesus' response was revolutionary.  "Neither the man nor his parents sinned.  He was born blind so that God's works might be revealed through him."  Jesus spit in the dirt, rubbed mud on the man's eyes and told him to go wash.  The man could then see and the religious establishment lost its collective mind because the healing happened outside of their designated parameters.

Whose sin brought tragedy?  My newsfeed is full of opinions.  "Hurricanes are the fault of liberals who defy God!"  "Hurricanes are the fault of conservatives who despise science!"  We are quick to look for who to blame for things that are out of our control.  And somehow the people that are at fault just happen to be the ones that we disagree with on other political issues.  Funny how that works.

Sometimes tragedies happen so that God's work can be revealed.  God's primary way of working on the Earth is through his Church.  For all its faults...for all its shortcomings...the family of God on Earth is how He has chosen to show himself to the world.  Tragedies are the time where our generosity and compassion and creativity and faith are supposed to shine the brightest.  Times of crisis...when people have lost everything...are the moments when the Church should have its arms open the widest and should be speaking the loudest its words of encouragement and support and hope.  That is how God's works and God's presence are revealed.  That is how the world sees the true face of God.

And...if Jesus is any sort of example...responding in this way will rile up the religious establishment who love their buildings and their rules and want to keep the world at bay so that their religion can remain pure.

Generation of Prophets

 We are the Forgotten Generation.  The Lost Generation.  The Aborted and Abandoned Generation.  The Cynical and Isolated Generation.  We are the voice in the wilderness, calling for a better world while two generational giants war with each other over cultural supremacy.  We are Generation X.  We are a Generation of Prophets.

Generation X is commonly defined as individuals born between 1965-1984.  We are the children of the eighties, children of Reagan, young adults during 9/11 and our entire adult life has been spent in the United States’ conflict with terrorism.  We witnessed the birth of the internet and were the ones who harnessed its power to connect the world.  We are a small generation, only around 45 million strong, whereas the generations on either side of us loom much larger.

Baby Boomers, the children of the veterans of the 2^nd World War, were born in the mid-1940s to mid-1960s and number 80 million.  Millennials, born between 1985-2004, are nearly as large at 78 million and have more disposable income and resource at their disposal than any generation in history.  These two massive forces are struggling for the reigns of the country, boomers reluctant to head into retirement and millennials eager to carve out their own space in the world.  They are the focus of every marketing campaign, every election campaign, every new product released and every cost-benefit analysis.  Are you wondering why Hollywood has recently started making R-rated comedies and superhero movies?  Millennials have come of age.  Are you wondering why the Erectile Dysfunction commercials are everywhere?  Boomers have come of age.

                

As much as I would like to just complain about the shortcomings of both of our generational neighbors, everything else is about them…this does not have to be. So who are the Gen X'-ers?  (Just a quick side note: Of course I am speaking in broad generalities. A single description is insufficient for 20 people, much less millions)  At the core of X-ers is the belief that the world is broken.  We see how systems are not working.  We hear the flaws in the majority's common sense.  We see the marginalized and the injustices and we know that this is not how the world is supposed to be.  We can envision a future that is different than "the good old days" because we know they were not that great for everyone.  

Here is the rub:  We know the world is broken.  We have ideas...really good ideas, on how to fix it.  But we do not have the power, the generational mojo, to do it ourselves.  We need the buy-in of the Boomers and/or the Millennials in order to put action to our words.  Do you know what people were called in Ye Olde Days who perceived problems in society, who saw what the future could hold and spoke truth to their leaders?  Prophets.  They were the prophets.

The role of the Prophet is to speak what they see.  The destiny of the Prophet is often to be ignored.  Even when their advice is heeded, the credit will go to the Leader, not the Prophet.  As an X-er, this can feel unfair and make you angry...but it is likely a reality that you have already encountered repeatedly in your adult life.  

It is not that we cannot lead or will not be in positions of authority.  We will most likely have another Gen X president...maybe 2 but certainly no more than that.  We can and will lead as individuals.  But corporately...collectively...we will serve as prophets to this country and to the older and younger generations.  My request for those of us who are willing to take on this role is twofold:

• Watch.  Allow yourself to see the full reality of what is going on.  Listen.  Pray.  Use everything at your disposal: your brain, your heart, your intuition...all of it.  Look through the marketing and the rhetoric to find the truth of the situation that you are in.
• Speak.  Do not stay silent.  Do not submit to fear or apathy or cynicism or hopelessness.  These have consumed and silenced many of our generation already.  Find a way to let your voice be heard.  It may be ignored but that is not a failure on your part.  Our failure comes when we choose to stay quiet.

Here is a piece of good news:  This world is not designed for us so we do not have to spend so much time, energy and resource trying to fit in.  We will never be the target demographic.  There is a freedom that comes with living out of how you were created instead of how you are supposed to act.  Live free.  See clearly.  Speak boldly.

"Just don't write crap."

     My wife and I went on a short walk a few weeks ago.  The stated purpose was to go to the corner store to grab some ice cream for the progeny.  Mostly the purpose was to have a few minutes away from the progeny.  As usually happens when we are together and not solving offspring issues, we talked through a variety of topics:  money, kids, home repairs, upcoming schedules, ways that the world is broken and how do we protect our hearts and teach our kids through all of that.  As we were heading onto our street and the final few minutes of our time, we landed on my new job.  The FSAF director position allows us to have a solid budget, creative and administrative challenge to keep me engaged at work, and a solid chunk of time each week...ideally set aside to work on writing.  It is an exciting prospect, but a little daunting as I am trying to figure out what to write and how to do that well.

     Carina turned to me as we were nearing the house and said, "Just don't write crap."

     Her point was not that I needed to pay attention to my style of prose because sometimes what I produce is just simply God-awful...I hope.  I choose to believe that her point, instead, was that the type of projects that I pursue should be of high quality and value.  There are a lot of opportunities to make money writing that do not develop the writer or build up the reader.  This summer I spent a number of hours on freelance writing sites, submitting proposals for various projects.  Some people wanted a new company slogan; others wanted help writing a children's book; others needed a series of sermons written; others wanted subtitling done; still others were looking for someone to write instruction manuals.  I won't even get into the romance novel industry requests.

     So what do I want to do?  What is worth the investment of 10 hours per week when I could be doing a thousand other things?  There are three avenues that spring to the forefront of my mind as I think about long-term writing.

• Novels.  I really enjoyed writing "The Seer" and having it in print.  I have the first draft of the sequel finished and outlines for 4 more after that.  I love the world-building and problem solving of creating a large story.  I enjoy creating real characters wrestling with physical, emotional and spiritual challenges.  And now I have no publisher as mine went out of business.  Part of what I want to work on in my writing time is editing and finishing the 2nd book and investing some effort into hiring a literary agent to help me move forward with getting "The Seer" back into print.
• Devotionals.  I would really like to write a series of devotionals specifically for Families with Special Needs members.  It combines a lot of areas that I have experience in.  It is challenging to fully engage with the church...it is difficult to fully engage with God when you are struggling so hard to keep your family afloat.  I would like to provide some tools to help families do that.
• Freelance work.  If I want to become a professional writer someday, I need to learn how to get paid for my writing.  I am pitching blogging for some local non-profits as a way to make a little bit of money and also provide a service to the community.  I am also keeping an eye out for requests for magazine article submissions and opportunities in that vein.  

     So that's where I am at.  It is not unlimited time, but I have a time and a place and a setting where I can get consistent writing work done.  It is a start and I am excited to see where the path leads.  I just have four words that now constantly ring in my head:

"Just don't write crap."

Wait...It's the 2nd week of August already?

It was just yesterday that I was writing about getting the new position as the Executive Director of the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival.  

And by "yesterday," I mean "three weeks ago."  And by "Executive Director," I mean "The person who knows absolutely nothing about Operations yet but is willing to answer questions and take suggestions."  And by "Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival," I mean "The Hurricane of 250+ Artists and Volunteers that descend on the Interior every July in order to provide 65 concerts, 150 classes and two weeks of Arts Overload to over 800 participants...and one overwhelmed new employee who decided to drag his children along so that he could have minions at his beck and call for the duration of the experience."

One of the interesting things that I am discovering as I move through the non-profits in our community is that there are pockets of different cultures that occupy the same space without having much interaction.  There are hundreds of new people that I am meeting who are life-long alaskans...who know my parents...who are deeply generous with their time and money as they support local non-profits and the arts...and who I have never encountered before.  It is a strange experience.

Another strange experience that I have encountered is this:  It has been a long time since I was the least educated and skilled person in a room.  But this is the scenario that I find myself in over and over again when I share a stage with professional artists:  remarkable individuals who have devoted their lives to honing their crafts and delighting others.

It took me a while to discover what my place was within this company.  The realization came as I was being led up onto the World Music and Dance stage, in front of the Jazz Band and among the Iranian and Flamenco Dancers.  I am excellent at spreadsheets and creating parameters for artists to create within.  That is great during the months of preparation, but during Festival...I am the Everyman.  

Bill Murray once said about the Olympic Games:

Every Olympic event should include one average person competing for reference.

It is  difficult to see just how fast these amazing athletes are when the separation between them is measured in thousandths of seconds.  Similarly it is hard to tell just how impressive our guest artists are when they are only seen with their peers.  I have no illusions of being a professional musician or visual artist or dancer, but I can appreciate and articulate the skill that is being displayed.

For example, we had a group of 9 composers spend 4 days hiking in Denali Park.  Then they were taken North and given 4 days to compose an original piece of music for randomly selected instruments.  Then they returned to Fairbanks where an incredible collection of 6 musicians learned 9 different pieces and then hosted a concert to perform them in the span of 2 days.  It is a program that is unique in the world and each year fills up within hours of being opened.

It is these programs and these individuals that I have been charged with stewarding.  I am honored and I am humbled and I have...49 weeks until the next Festival begins.

A New Season

I am pleased...so far beyond pleased, in fact...to announce that my job search is over.  I am going to be the next Executive Director of the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival!

FSAF is best known for their two-week event (this year running July 16-30) each summer where they host classes, workshops, concerts and lessons that connect Interior Alaskans with world-renowned artists, musicians, chefs, healers and performers.  FSAF also sponsors dozens of rural outreaches throughout the year that introduce and encourage the arts in smaller communities around the state.

There are a number of great aspects to this new job, such as:

• I don't have to scour craigslist, fairbankshelpwanted.com, the classifieds and all the other job sites that have served as my web-based home for the past two months.  The internet can now be put to its proper usage: watching cake decorating videos with my 4 year old and finding out how much money Spider Man: Homecoming has made.
• This is a job that invests into our community.  This is an event that has been going for nearly 40 years.  There are multiple generations of Interior Alaskans who have discovered a hidden artistic gifting through this organization and attend year after year.
• Continuing the pattern of my past 3 jobs, the offices and main performance venues are even closer to my house than my last job...confirming that my eventual professional destiny will be working at College Floral.
• The job utilizes all my non-profit management skills that I have developed over the past 5 years: grant writing, fundraising, budgeting, public speaking, administration and organization, volunteer management...Most of my job description feels very familiar and comfortable and...
• The job pushes me to grow in some substantial areas.  I will learn a lot about the artistic community.  Instead of managing 1,500 people over the course of a year I will be managing 1,500 people over the course of 2 weeks. I've worked in the High-Risk Youth area of Non-Profits and the IDD area of Non-Profits.  Now I get to add the Artistic Community and Performance realm.  I'm looking forward to growing.
• Facilities Management is not part of this job.  I can't quite explain how giddy I am at not having to be the one to shovel the roof and unclog the toilets.
• This is a 3/4 time position for most of the year.  Which mean that I will have a substantial part of my average work week to focus on writing and publishing...I am already itching to put together a spreadsheet to document what I will be working on when.

A heart-felt thanks to everyone who has been supportive and encouraging during this challenging summer.  Having no job and having our car die has been stressful at times.  A number of you have given encouraging words or rides or gifts of food during these past several weeks and we are deeply grateful. 

I am off to learn more about the 8,745 details that I still do not know about the Festival.  If you are in Fairbanks for the next couple of weeks, check out www.fsaf.org for a listing of classes and concerts.  If any of the look interesting, there is still room to participate.  Likely you will catch a glimpse of me stopping by to see what I have gotten myself into.

Blessings, 

James   

James' Guide to Simple Living: Chapter 4- Food

My mom loves cooking.  I love eating.  It is no surprise that I am not a skinny man today.  My employees asked me what my favorite kind of food was a couple of months ago.  "Anything that I do not have to make myself," was my response.  I love Italian food, Chinese food, sandwiches, pizza, Thai food, Hamburgers, Mexican food, anything with cheese on it.  I am a big fan of eating.

Eating always carries a few challenges with it.  Almost everything is available any time you want it so there are very few restrictions that are externally placed upon us.  All the restrictions usually come from within.  The restrictions could be time available, budget allotment, nutritional value, forbidden ingredients, calorie count, or just living in a family of picky eaters.

The most common struggle that my wife and I have over food has to do with quality.  Her perspective is that whatever we consume most should be of the highest quality in order to give the kids the best nutritional benefit.  I lean towards cheap products for staples with higher quality/cost going towards items that we do not use as much of.  We never sit down and fight out what kind of groceries we need to get.  It is just that whoever is shopping looks at the aisles through their own lens...which could be very different than the other person.  I do have to say that I have come to a point, after 17 years of marriage, where I do carry my wife's voice in my head when I go to the store.  I never used to wonder, "Does my cart have enough leafy greens in it," before.  Now I do.

Simple living has forces...I mean encouraged us to sit down and work out what we need to buy each week and an estimate of what that will cost.  In doing that we are cutting our grocery bill by nearly 60%, which is outstanding.  There are a lot of people who take their simple living approach to food much more seriously than we do.  They will meal plan and prepare for the month, grow their own food, make their own condiments, raise livestock in order to eat in a more organic and focused way.  We are not so zealous.

Again Simple Living is not about living a spartan existence.  It is about intentionally focusing your resources in order to craft the lifestyle that you wish to pursue.  A garden with chickens and goats and compost and root cellars is not the lifestyle that we want to pursue at the moment.  Spending less on groceries so that we can bridge this period between jobs?  Yes.  Having more time to bake and cook with the kids?  Yes.  It is not glamorous.  I will probably never write a book entitled, "Feeding your family on $12 per day...with minimal dishes!"  But this is how we want to invest in food during this season.

James' Guide to Simple Living: Chapter 3- The Budget

At the heart of Simple Living lies the Budget.

This is not just an excuse for me to again proclaim my love for Excel Spreadsheets...although I do have deep affection for the ways that the columns all line up and you can set up equations and carry sums from one sheet to a different sheet and...I digress.

At the core of the Budget is this truth:  Money is Slippery.  It comes and goes quickly and modern technology makes commerce easier than ever.  The world is available to us and there are a lot of really great things that we could buy.  The goal of the Budget is to take a look at our cash flow and be intentional about where the money goes.  If we do this, our money is a great tool towards living the life that reflects our priorities and values.  If we don't do this, we end up with lots of things that don't last and that we don't want and our credit cards morph from safety nets to heavy anchors.

What makes a Budget work?  Here are a few ideas:

• Have some money and some money coming in.  No resource means that your budget is really just an aspirational wishlist of what you might want to do someday.
• Be Honest.  Brutally honest.  Be honest about what you actually bring in and what things actually cost.  If your cell phone bill each month is actually $95 don't say that it is "about $75."  If your monthly income is $1,564 don't call it "about $1,600."  If you need to round in order to keep track of numbers in your head, round down on income and up on expenses so the income would be $1,550 per month and the cell phone bill would be $100.  It is better to end up with too much money than not enough.
• Savings are part of the Budget.  Savings are what keeps problems from becoming crises.  Stuff happens.  Unforeseen stuff happens, like the power steering system of your 10 year old car dying and requiring $2,000 to fix and having to choose whether it is worth that investment or whether you should look into a different vehicle...as a hypothetical, random example.
• Giving is part of the Budget.  If it is part of the money coming in and going out of the accounts, it is part of the Budget.  If you have regular monthly places that you like to give, great.  That's easy.  If you lean more towards spontaneous giving and feel shackled by planned giving, that's ok too.  Allot how much you can give per month and set it aside.  You can pull it out in cash or set up a different bank account just for generosity.  One of the primary benefits of simple living is clearing up more space to give away money to great causes.
• Follow the budget.  The paper (or spreadsheet) is only as useful as the person applies it.  If you put down $50 for gas each month but really spend $75, then adjust the budget or the driving but stop lying to yourself about what you are spending.  Exceptions will arise but if exceptions are the norm then they are your new standards.
• Communicate.  This is for those of us who share a bank account.  A Budget can not just live in the mind of one of the partners.  You don't have to both revere Excel, but you need to both live by the same budget or else you are setting up a volatile mixture of resignation and frustration.  Find a format that you can both read and understand so that you can talk through what will actually work.  
• Money, and specifically the Budget, is meant to be a Tool, not a Master.  Your money is meant to enable you to live according to your principles and priorities.  Treat it as a tool, not the final objective. The bigger question should be "What kind of life do I want to lead?"  The ideal budget will reflect the answer to that question.

James' Guide to Simple Living: Chapter 2- Adventures in Breakfast

7:30 rolled around this morning and the Menaker Morning Machine kicked into high gear:

• Wake up the big kids because the 12 year old has camp that starts at 8:30
• Wake up the wife since she will be walking the 12 year old up to her camp.
• Get the kids breakfast...this could be interesting.
• Attempt 1- Cereal and Milk.  Nope.  Out of Milk.
• Attempt 2- Toast.  Nope.  Out of Bread.
• Attempt 3- Scrambled Eggs.  Nope.  Propane ran out last night.
• Attempt 4- Pancakes. Nope.  Did I mention that the propane ran out last night?
• Attempt 5-Waffles? Nope out of a couple of ingredients...including milk.
• Attempt 6- Stop by Sunrise Bagels on the way to camp.  Nope. We are on a strict No Eating Out budget.
• Attempt 7- Quick drive to the grocery store to get milk and bread. Nope.  The car is in the shop with "The largest Power Steering Fluid Leak the Garage has ever seen."
•  Attempt 8- Employ super Dadding skills.  Get two glass ramekins.  Coat with butter.  Stir up two eggs in each dish.  Microwave.  Serve the children "The Great Leaning Tower of Scrambled Eggs" and swagger back into the kitchen.

Simple living sometimes requires the impossible...something like early morning creativity. We got the children fed and the girl to her camp. Carina and the boy rode the bus from the university to the grocery store and then brought food back to the house.  The little girl and I walked the empty propane tank over to the chevron station where our poor car was sitting.  We filled the tank, found out the car should probably not be driven more than a few blocks at a time and came home to compare notes with Carina about how her adventures of the day have gone.

The kids are having a grand time.  They get to ride the bus, ride bikes, go for walks, do lots of home cooking, have dad home more and generally do lots of things that they don't regularly get to do.  This is why I describe our status as "Simple Living" instead of "Poverty." Our quality of life is not being adversely effected.  We are just needing to be flexible.

Personally, I hate being poor.  It is such a luxury to simply be able to throw money at something.  Out of groceries?  Just order pizza.  Car won't work?  Rent another one while you spend $2,000 fixing up this one.  Tooth aching?  Just schedule a dentist visit and pay your deductable.  It is easy to forget that this is the lifestyle of the privileged, not the status quo.  There are lots of people who have to get groceries by planning their lives around the bus schedule instead of just going on impulse.  There are lots of people who have to choose between rent and healthy teeth.  There are lots of people who's maximum travel distance is how far they can bike.  They are no less precious in God's eyes and, in fact, Scripture makes a concerted effort to point out that He holds them especially close to His heart.

I dislike watching our bank account shrink.  I dislike having to tell the kids that we can't do some things.  I dislike the uncertainty that tomorrow and next month hold.  But there are moments where I feel my compassion grow or I see the kids' characters being solidly built or our family comes together to creatively solve a problem together and I think this season of Simple Living might be an okay thing.

James' Guide to Simple Living: Chapter 1- Name it and Claim it

A quick job update:  Still waiting...on everything.  Waiting on the results of my most recent interview.  Waiting to hear from the 2 magazine that I submitted proposals to.  Waiting to hear from any of the 6 freelance proposals that I submitted last week.  The waiting is not unexpected, but it is not fun.  What I really want is a timeline; I want to know when I will start working again.  A hard date is something that I can work with and plan around.  Starting work in June?  Great we'll enjoy the rest of the month until that starts.  Starting work in July?  Ok.  We'll budget our time and money to have a great summer.  Starting work in August?  Fine.  I'll find some seasonal work in order to cover the gap.  Any of those will work out, but until we get some solid information, the family is trying to make what we have go as far as it can.

Welcome my friends to the world of simple living.  Simple living is a lifestyle of frugality that does not compromise the family's quality of life.  The children are well fed and clothed; they play and pursue their interests.  However we cut out some of life's extras in order to intentionally apply our time and money other places.  Some people choose a simple life because they value quality time with the family or they want to focus their resources on donating to a valued cause.  Some people have a simple life chosen for them.  They are fired, take a pay cut, have a huge medical expense or some other unforeseen event arise and they have to budget accordingly.

It is always a more secure feeling to choose instead of having it chosen for you.  We are somewhere between the choosing and being chosen for.  I could have chosen to stay at my previous job longer by simply not telling the Board that I was considering leaving.  Then I could have quit one day and started my new job the next day.  That did not seem like a decision with integrity so I informed my employers of my intention to move on and they were able to complete their transition without harming the organization or its participants.

So June rolled around and Carina and I decided that we needed to re-evaluate our budget.  We have a month worth of savings but that could be extended if we simplified life.  I'll get more into what we cut and what we kept later, but here's the big initial take-away:  A simple life is not a worse life.  There are trade-offs that come with getting a big paycheck.  There are trade-offs that come with kids being involved in lots of activities.  There are trade-offs that come with eating out and going to movies and having nice stuff.  We have the opportunity to decide which trade-offs are worthwhile and which are too costly.  Instead of complaining about what we don't have or can't do, we have the opportunity to explore other ways of living so that when we do have money again we can be intentional about pursuing the kind of lifestyle that is in line with what we want our family to value.

This is our summer of simple living.  If you are there too, try to not fall into despair.  Simple Living.  Name it.  Claim it.  Learn everything that you can from it for it will only be for a season.

Waiting

I can tell when I am antsy when my legs cannot stop moving.  Sitting here at my desk I keep bouncing my leg.  Then I bend one leg so that I am sitting on it and the other one starts swinging.  If I stand up I am merely going to pace or go do dishes while I fidget.  Why am I antsy?  Because I am waiting.

So I've taken some steps in this whole freelance writing adventure.  I have reviewed our budget to figure out what kind of financial margin we have while we wait another few weeks for job interviews and invitations.  I have set up no fewer than three spreadsheets to track freelance money and projects. I set up skype and norton and windows and a couple of other tools in order to have this computer meet my needs.  I have registered on a freelance writing service, applied for three projects, submitted proposals to two magazines...and now we wait.

I don't like waiting.  I don't know anyone who really does.  The most positive thing that I ever hear is, "I don't mind waiting."  Waiting means that you have something that you want to do but you cannot move on it until something else happens.  You need someone else to finish their part of the project before you can do your part.  You need the rain to stop before you can play outside.  You need the crappy driver in front of you to finish parallel parking before you can get around them to drop off your one little letter at the post office.  Whatever the case may be.

There are a couple of different approaches that can be taken when you are waiting.  Option A is to turn your whole world into focusing on when you can start.  I cannot make a call or be away from my phone so I don't miss the notification that I can begin.  I will check my websites multiple times per hour to see if it is time.  I get tense and short tempered because nothing good can happen in my life until this waiting is over!  So there's that option.

Option B realizes that there are some things that are out of my control.  Refreshing the page 1,000 times will not make the plane land any faster.  What I can control is how I choose to spend right now.  Do I make the most of this time by engaging in rest or play or learning or prayer...or do I choose to wrap myself up in anxiety until I can be released like a wound spring when the waiting is over?  I am starting to learn that B might actually be healthier than A.

The people who are most miserable here in Fairbanks are the ones who live for summer and spend our 8 months of winter waiting, resenting the snow and darkness and cold.  The ones who are happiest find things to do in all seasons; Indoor or Outdoor, Active or Stationary, there are activities that build the body, mind and soul that can be found in every season.

So today, I have put in a few hours of administrative work and freelance proposals.  I have initiated with those that I need to initiate with.  My family is engaged in their individual activities.  We will connect a little later today for some family fun.  So instead of clicking back and forth between websites and cursing people who do not respond quickly, I will do a little praying and some housework and I will learn a new skill.  I'm going to learn how to write screenplays and then start adapting "The Seer."  Will I complete it and try to get it turned into a movie?  I don't know, but it sounds like a fun challenge and a significantly more productive way to wait than Option A.

From Riding to Writing

     The wordplay of the title only works if you read it out loud quickly, but I am pretty proud of it anyway.

     So I realize that I have been out of touch for a while.  The middle of last week my son and I went out on his big birthday ride.  I'm not saying that it has taken a week for me to be able to sit back down at my desk after that...but today is the first day that I have not had extra padding on my chair.

     The ride went great.  The weather was overcast but we had no rain.  It did start hailing about two hours after we finished so I was grateful that we headed out when we did.  We loaded up our four water bottles and 8 energy bars; we aired up our tires, packed our backpack and set off with mom and the girls waving from the house.  We hit the first intersection and climbed the first hill to the second intersection...and decided that this was a grand place to take our first water break.  We hit the downhill side and then trudged up the next hill to the third intersection and mutually agreed that it was time for a rest stop and power bar break.  Fifteen minutes.  One mile.  Two stops.  Look out Tour de France.  My biggest consolation was that the fifteen year old was huffing and puffing just as much as I was...nearly as much as I was...for about two minutes and then he was ready to go again.

     Everything went really smooth.  Our rest stops were right where we needed them to be.  We were right on schedule and Big Mister had a great time whooping and hollering as he charged down the substantial downhills.  I really appreciated knowing the route well so that I could tell the boy (and myself), "Right after this big set of hills is a drop and rest stop,"  or "We'll meet up at the top of this hill, right before the turnoff to the bike path."  Kiddo had a good ride and a fun birthday filled with legos.

     We've done a couple of short rides in this past week, but now that the big ride is over, my attention is turning from Riding to Writing.  Have to admit, I still am so internally impressed by the word play that I had to use it again.

     My job search is going well.  I have a really strong chance to get one of a couple of different positions...which start end of summer-ish.  So likely I won't have a steady position for another month or two.  We've gone over our budget and can make it work, but this is going to be a season of lots of disposable time and little disposable income.  And did I mention that I have US District court Jury duty for 90 days starting the end of June?  So no big trips our of Fairbanks that last more than a weekend.

     Instead I'm diving into Freelance writing.  I have submitted some proposals to magazines and signed up on a Freelance site.  I will be working on content for magazines and blogs and websites and possibly some grants.

     What I found while I was setting all this up was that there were some similarities to preparing for the bike trip with my son.  First and foremost, I needed to get over my fear of pain and rejection and dive in.  I put off training for the bike ride because I knew it would hurt to get back to biking.  I spent a fair amount of time researching freelancing and looking at different proposals and organizations because I hate getting rejection letters.  I just needed to commit and dive in and grow as I went.

     So here I go, trying to become a writer.

     My seat is still sore...maybe I'll use that padding for one more day.

Training Part 4: The Right Tools

You know what makes bike riding significantly easier?  Not having a flat tire.  You know what makes not having a flat tire significantly easier?  Having a tire pump that works.  My rear tire has been noticeably flat for the previous three days...like the rims riding an inch above the ground flat.  I've been trying to pump it up, but having no success.  Today  I decided that before we hit the weekend, I needed some resolution.  The tire either needed to be inflated or replaced.  So I sat down to try to learn a new skill.

Eventually I discovered that our tire pump had a small piece that had broken off and it needed to be replaced.  When I used a different pump I was actually able to build air pressure and my bike did not groan when I sat on it.  Along the way I learned how to remove my wheel, take out the inner tire tube, find and repair tube holes and I learned the mechanics of how a tire valve works.  Good information to have, but at the end of the day I simply needed another tire pump.

Now I am not going to say that this ride dd not hurt and that it was smooth sailing for the entire duration, but I barely broke a sweat as my son and I shaved three minutes off our time from yesterday.  Maybe it was the inflated tires.  Maybe it was that my seat was adjusted properly or we started later in the morning or that I have been riding all week.  Whatever the reason, today was faster and easier than it has been so far.  I am feeling cautiously optimistic about our ride next week.  We'll try a longer ride tomorrow and then go from there.

I was struck again today at how big an impact the right tools have.  There are some tasks that are nigh unto impossible...unless you have one small, perfect tool that was designed for that very job.  I was trying to inflate the tire tube in order to see if it had leaks.  My pump was not working so I thought:

"I'll blow it up with my mouth.  That's not working.  Ahh, the valve has a small rod that has to be depressed for air to flow in there.  How can I do that?  I could get a toothpick and hold it between my teeth then push on that rod while I blow..."

Shockingly, that did not work.  The next pump that I got was actually designed to depress that rod and pump in air.  In less than a minute my tire was inflated and ready to go.  The right tools are everything.  Auto shops have dozens of tools that are only good for one thing, but when used for that one thing they turn a 3 hour project into a 15 minute endeavor.  If you have ever tried replacing one of your car's CV joints on your own, you know what I mean.

A lot of our struggles in life come because we are using the wrong tools.  Skills, abilities, character traits, passions, resources, relationships, trainings...these can all be tools.  But we have to know which tool to use at which time.  I know of many non-profit organizations that get into deep trouble because they rely on good intentions and dreams instead of data analysis when they are creating their annual budgets.  Good intentions and dreams are vital tools for a non-profit.  They are instrumental in resource development, networking and vision casting.  They are lousy foundations for the creation of a budget because the budgeting process answers the question, "What will we do with what we have?" while good intentions and dreams answer the question, "Where do we want to go?" They both deal with the future, but take very different approaches and use very different tools.

If you are stuck in an area of your life, consider that there may be a different tool that you need in order to solve it.

 

Training Part 3: Use the Hill

I thought about subtitling this post something snazzy like:

• "What goes down must come up!"
• "The Joy and the Pain of Bike Riding"
• "Ain't No Mountain High Enough..."

But I didn't.  It does not really matter if I am going down a dip in the road or up a 33 degree slope, I feel right away when the grade changes.  Either the pressure is relieved from my legs and I feel the sweet, blessed relief of charging down hill OR my legs start to burn, my speed rapidly declines and I start downshifting like a mad man.  Hills are everything that is fun about bike riding and everything that is horrid about bike riding all in one neat and tidy package.  When you are going uphill, the great hope is that this too shall pass and there will be a downhill stretch just on the other side of the peak.  When you are speeding downhill, wind whipping past your face while your legs and your lungs joyfully sing, it is important to remember that there will probably be an uphill segment coming up very soon.  Remember to use the Hill.

That was my breakthrough revelation last year when my son and I did this ride:  Remember to use the Hill.  The first year of our trip was pain, miser, tears and despair.  I died going up every single hill and seriously considered calling my wife to come and get us midway through the ride.  My son is considerably lighter and in better shape than I am.  When we would get to a hill, he would just hop off his bike and bound up the rest of the slope like a big labrador puppy.  I had very little bounding in me.

Last year I realized that instead of trying to match my son's pace, I needed to make my own in order to have it be a good experience.  So instead of following him, riding the brakes downhill and grinding up the other sides I took the lead and built up speed on the downhills, using my velocity to shoot me most of the way up the next hill and significantly decreasing the amount of grinding that I did.  Instead of coasting through my decent I would pedal harder and build up speed.  I used the hill to get me up the next one.

I've been thinking a lot about the metaphor.  I just finished a job that paid me more than I had ever made before.  Financially we were zooming downhill.  Instead of just spending paycheck to paycheck, we pushed a little harder and used our income to pay off our credit cards and put away a couple of months worth of savings for when we had another hill to climb.  Now that I am looking for a job, we can use that margin to look for the right job, not just jump at the first opening that comes across the job boards.

Use the Hill.  It is not just applicable with money.  The warm weather of summer is the best time to winterize your home.  Summer is also a great time to try new things with your kids and see what resonates with them so that you can find opportunities for them to pursue their passions during the school year. 

Savor the good times...the parts of life that are fun and stimulating and filled with joy.  And use those good times to equip yourself for that next challenge.  Use the Hill.

Training Part 2: Diet

Know what I like to eat when I exercise?

Everything.

Seriously.  It is like my body says, "Why am I sore?   Do I feel sweat?  Was that...was that exercise?  I don't exercise.  At least I don't any more.  The last time I regularly exercised was when you were a swimmer in high school.  Is that what we are doing again?  OK. The calorie count that we were on back then was over 4,000 calories per day.  I am going to make your stomach ache and your mouth water until you deposit that amount of food.  Now,..what would be good with cheese?"

I do one thirty minute bike ride (I took four minutes off of my route from yesterday) and I become a hobbit.  Breakfast?  Of course.  2nd Breakfast?  Don't mind if I do.  Elevensies?  Sure...I'm exercising.  Lunch.  I earned that one.  Afternoon snacks?  Dinner?  Supper?  Midnight snacks?

I know that I am not going to whip myself into peak physical form in a week.  But it will be helpful on my ride if I have not gained another 10 pounds while training.

My appetite is an unintended consequence of my exercising.  Unintended consequences show up everywhere.  A good deed or action ripples across our community, leading to other deeds and other actions.  Sometimes the results are everything we could have hoped for:  a steady stream of people paying it forward for the betterment of all.  Sometimes the results are not what hoped for or intended:  I give an employee a great review and we talk about where they could grow next which leads them to think about their future in a new light which leads them to look for a better opportunity which leads to me losing a great employee.

Life with kids is full of unintended consequences.  I was going to qualify that to say "Life with special needs kids" but I am pretty sure it is true for them all.  Hosting a play date for the 4 year old leads to deputizing the other two in order to help clean the house a little bit.  That leads to the 12 year old criticizing the work of the 14 year old which leads to him trying to work harder and faster and then tripping over the 4 year old and dropping a mug which shatters on the ground and everyone being kicked outside so that a grown-up can clean up the pieces which leads to everyone being mad/sad when the play date shows up.  Then the play date is great.  The 4 year old has a blast.  The big kids are praised for their help and given some new big-kid privileges.  Everyone is still a family and still loves each other and life goes on.

Life is full of actions and reactions, challenges and victories, causes and effects.  Nothing happens in a vacuum.  Don't be shocked when unintended consequences arrive.

Just don't eat an entire block of cheese in one sitting because you are hungry from exercising.

 That is never a good idea.

Training

I'm sitting here at my desk and I can barely type.  I know what I want to write, my body is just angry at me and letting me know that in a variety of ways.  My hands are tingling as if they have just been asleep.  My lungs are burning.  I have showered, but I continue to blink sweat out of my eyes.  My legs...how is it possible to be numb and burning all at the same time?  All this from a measly 40 minute bike ride.

Rewind a few weeks.  My son and I are in the car and I ask him what he wants to do for his upcoming birthday.  His pause is only for a matter of seconds before he dives in, "The usual.  Let's bike around Farmer's Loop and stop for snacks and then go to Barnes and Noble then bike to Grandma's house."  We have developed a routine...it may be a tradition now as this will be our third year.  I think he really enjoys the freedom and adventure of the event as well as its familiarity.  I also think that he enjoys having guy time without any younger sisters around, but that is just my guess.

"Why are you asking?" he inquired, "My birthday is not for a long time."

"True," I replied, trying to hide my apprehension, "It's just that when you are a teenager, it gets easier to do things year after year.  When you are a grown-up, it gets more challenging to do things year after year.  I just need to spend some time getting ready.  We'll have a great time."

Welcome to my week of getting ready.  I've put it off as long as I can with chaos at work and sickness at home and weather delays.  If I don't start riding this week, the boy's birthday is going to be filled with a lot of manly tears.

So today I went on my 2nd bike ride of the season.  I think my tires are a little flat and my brakes need some work.  But mostly the issues are with my legs...and my lungs.  It is a little unfair that his birthday comes so close to the beginning of summer, A couple more weeks and the ride would be much easier to plan for.  When you are thinking of having children, no one gives you helpful pointers like, "Wait for a few more weeks so that you will have time to get into bike shape for his birthday each year."  Oh well.

I'll be riding this week.  It will get easier.  My lungs will remember how to breathe.  My legs will remember that they actually can get me up the hills because they have done it before.  My body will remember that it does not have to actively rebel at the first sign of exercise.  We've done this before and his birthday will be great.

But today was not that day.

Green Up

     My son and I were in Ecuador this past March and during one of our tours, the guide was describing seasons on the Equator.  He said that each year has four seasons: The first dry season, the first wet season, the second dry season and the second wet season.  Temperatures stay fairly consistent.  The amount of light that they get stays fairly consistent.  It is just that some days have more rain than other days.

     Fairbanks is a little different.  We can go from 90 degrees in the summer to -60 degrees in the winter.  We go from 22 hours of light in the summer to 2 hours in the winter.  We have definite seasons...sort of.  We all know about winter.  It lasts the longest and is what we are most famous for.  Summers are fairly clear.  It is hot out, there are mosquitoes and lots and lots of sun.  Unless it is a wildfire season, then the sun is obscured by the smoke.  Other than that...and the occasional June snowstorm, summers are fairly stable.  Fall is kind of vague.  Usually there is some transition time between summer and winter, often marked by dropping temperatures and rain that coincides with the state fair.  I say "usually" because most years it is a race between the sky and the trees to see whether the leaves will fall off the trees before the ground is covered with snow.  Snow covered ground is generally the indicator that winter has begun, so our winters usually start anytime from September 1st through the end of October.  I've always had a white Halloween.

     Then we have spring which is open to anyone's interpretation.  No one really knows if we are in spring or not because Fairbanks springs are rollercoaster rides.  They usually involve snowstorms and melts, freezing rain, huge puddles, piles of garbage revealed by melting snow and then, somehow, summer is here.  Is it summer now?  I'm not sure.  There is still snow on the ground and the trees have no leaves...but the temperature is not dropping below freezing anymore...mostly.

     Fairbanks spring is essentially comprised of two Ups:  Break-Up and Green-Up.  Break-Up is the transition from winter.  The temperatures are warming, the snow is melting from the roads and the roofs.  The hard pack of ice that covered driveways is becoming slush.  Everything becomes gray and dirty as the snow dissipates and reveals gravel and debris that accumulated over the past six months.  It is ugly but people are so happy because the air no longer hurts to breath.  Green-Up is the transition to summer.  The trees have been bare for months and the land is gray.  Two days ago we got a nice large rainfall.  Yesterday the sun was out and shining for most of the day.  Today there are buds beginning to open on trees.  In three days everything will be green.  Green-Up happens all at once after a long season of build up.

     I am in a period of transition and it feels a lot like our spring.  I am almost done with the Break-Up piece; the transition out of Morning Star is almost complete.  I am not to the Green-Up part yet where I am transitioning into something new.  I am in the part of spring that everyone despises...the Waiting-Up, if you will.  It's not winter.  It's not summer.  It's just dealing with the garbage that has been revealed and trying to get ready for when summer hits.  I've put in some job applications and had some great healing prayer this past weekend.  I'm doing chores around the house and playing with kids and doing some writing and...just waiting to see what doors open next.  Will that be tomorrow?  Will that be in two weeks?  I don't know.

     For all of you who are Waiting just like I am for the next season of your life to begin, I can only offer you encouragement.  Spend your time well, dealing with the garbage in your heart and in your house.  Prepare yourself to be ready to respond when Green-Up hits, for it will be sudden.  This time will not last forever, summer is coming.

Control Freak

I woke up with a knot in my stomach today.  The knot has migrated to the top of my head and morphed from a gnawing queasiness into a pulsing headache.  So...would I call this progress?  I'm not sure.  What I would call it is anxiety and my body manifesting the emotions that I am trying so hard to suppress.

I am, by both nature and nurture, a Control Freak.  I am an Oldest Child.  I am in the demographic majority.  I am an introvert.  I am an Alaskan.  I have administrative and strategic giftings.  I am an ISTJ and a 1 on the Enneagram.  Each and every one of those components have control issues.  Roll them into one person and you have someone who bristles when life is not proceeding as planned.

I have plans.  I have back-up plans.  I have back-up plans to my back-up plans.  I change lanes 4 stoplights early in order to make sure everything goes smoothly on daily commutes.  I love graphs, charts and spreadsheets.  Oh, how I love spreadsheets.  One of the things that makes me a pretty good manager is that I usually know how people will respond when I ask a question or throw out a new idea.  When plans do not work I can usually respond calmly because I have thought through scenarios.

Now I find myself here.  I have completed my employment at Morning Star.  I have submitted applications for a few different positions around Fairbanks.  And now I am waiting.  The earliest that I would hear about interviews would be early next week.  I can run through scenarios in my head, but there is nowhere near enough information to be able to figure out what our lives will look like in one month.

All of my buttons are being pushed.  Everything in me is demanding that I find something to control so that I have a sense of power and agency in my life.  I am doing a lot of dishes and raking the leaves off our yard.  I am checking job sites multiple times per day.  I want to eat everything that I see and play every video game known to man.

I know this is me being driven by Fear.  Recognizing it and naming it provides some relief to the physical pressure that I feel, but it still remains.  Here is the question that this all boils down to:  Will God take care of my family and I?  This will not be the final time that I ask this question.  Is He big enough?  Does He care enough?  Is He trust-worthy?

The answer has been "Yes" in the past.  It is probably "Yes" now.  I know this...and yet I need to know it more.  I don't have a plan or a back-up plan except to trust that God will take care of me.  He's provided the exact right job 3 different times in the past 7 years...He will probably do it again.  My invitation is to listen for His call and respond when it comes.  Until that happens, I will do dishes and rake leaves and write posts and devotionals and play with the kids...and try not to drive my wife crazy.

My First Project, Draft #3

You know what makes it really easy to get thrown off from writing regularly?  Illness.  And Lice.  And having your desk turned into the family's official delousing station.  And your last week of work.  And your anniversary.  All of these things are important.  Some are more fun than others.  And they all happened between this past wednesday and today.

You know what makes it really easy to get back into writing?  Looking at job boards and seeing what kind of positions are sitting out there currently.  So let's dive back in.

My past couple of posts have centered on a new project that I am wanting to work on, a devotional for special needs families.  I have the first passage that I want to build off of, now I am working on crafting the devotional itself.  The second draft was a significant upgrade to the first one.  But as I read it over, I don't think I am done yet.  This version has a lot of justifying on my part.  I spend a lot of verbal real estate explaining filling out my hard story.  There is very little time actually spent on encouraging the reader.

Here's the thing.  Everyone who wants to read this devotional will have some form of a hard story.  If I throw out the details of my son's sleep issues, the automatic response is to compare and internally say, "That's not so bad.  Listen to this!"  I don't want this to be a competition about who has suffered the most, I want it to be an opportunity for those who are giving everything that they have to take a small break so that they can be filled up.  So let's remove most of my sleep story details and add more about Hope:

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit…

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.  Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

                                                                                -Matthew 5:1-3

     There is a hole in my living room wall.  It is the same size and shape as my fist…which is appropriate because that’s what I used to make the hole.

        I have a “I didn’t sleep when my son was little” story.  We all have those stories.  This was the night that I broke.  I was so tired and he was so loud and I was so angry and defeated that I lashed out.  The wall seemed like the target that would have the fewest long-term ramifications. That was the moment that I realized how insufficient I was for what I had been given in this life.  I did not have the skills…I did not have the character to be the father that my son needed.

This is being poor in spirit. We were created to be not enough so that we would seek out the One who completes us.  This tears at my soul.  I have to be enough.  I have to be.  Otherwise my son is doomed and I am a Failure.

        Not a Failure.  Blessed.  Favored.  Lucky.  Jesus says that we are among the most fortunate of humanity when we realize that we are incomplete.  “For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  God’s kingdom is tailor-made just for us.  It is a place where our shortcomings are covered by His goodness…where our selfishness is replaced by His compassion…where my feeble attempts to love my son are enhanced and reinforced by the One who is Love.

        I would never have known what “poor in spirit” meant if it was not for my son.  Through those late nights I have come to see myself more clearly.  I have come to see God more clearly.  I am grateful for those nights.

Reflections:

·         Where are you insufficient for your life?  Does that make you a Failure or Blessed?

My First Project, Draft #2

Pestilence has invaded my home tonight so this will be brief.  Here is the 2nd draft of the devotional that I posted yesterday:

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit…

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.  Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

                                                                                -Matthew 5:1-3

There is a hole in my living room wall.  It is a dent, really, but I’ve never fixed it.  Never considered covering it up or replacing that section of drywall.  The hole is the size of my fist, which is what I used to hit the wall late one night when I had come to the end of my rope.

The first few years with my son were hard, really hard.  Specifically, he would not sleep.  Three hours on, three hours off for months at a time.  There were some seasons where he would not sleep before 4am.  When he got sick, he slept less instead of more.  I was working two jobs but my wife was exhausted so I would take some late night shifts in an attempt to walk the boy to sleep while he screamed.  Sometimes I could get him to pass out in a half an hour.  Sometimes it was closer to two hours or not at all and I would stagger back into our room, defeated and feeling so guilty that I had to give a screaming child back to my overwhelmed wife.

This particular night the crying was especially loud and the walking was especially ineffective. By the second hour I was so tired and so angry…and I had no one that I could be angry at…so I punched the wall.  It was at that moment that I realized how insufficient I was for what I had been given in this life.  I did not have the skills…I did not have the character to be the father that my son needed.

This is being poor in spirit.  The awareness that we are too broken and insufficient for the lives that we have been given.  It is not a fear to run from, it is the reality of existence.  We were created to be not enough so that we would seek out the One who completes us.  Jesus is the one who gives strength and hope and patience to get through those sleepless nights.  He is the one who builds character and pours resources into our lives to handle the children he has gifted to us.

Recognizing your poverty of spirit is not a cause for despair; Jesus calls you Blessed because you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you need Him.  His Eternal Kingdom is reserved for you and for me…and I would not have known this truth if it were not for my kiddo yelling at me all through the night.

My First Project, Draft #1

     When you start off writing, "They" will tell you to write what you know.  As much as I would love to write about how to eat a large chocolate bunny in one sitting, I do not think there is much of a market for that piece.  I have an idea that has been bouncing around in my head for a couple of weeks now.

       I have a lot of experience in teaching and encouraging people through the use of Scripture.  I have a lot of experience in parenting and the special needs community.  What if I put those together?  What if I were to write a devotional for the parents of special needs kids as a way to bring a few minutes of encouragement and peace into lives filled with chaos and exhaustion?  That would be a population that I would be proud to serve in a format that has very few options at the moment.

      Here's what I know:  Parents of Special Needs kids are all a little bit crazy.  I say that with no shame and no hesitation in the slightest.  Parenting is hard to begin with.  Then you add physical complications, developmental delays, poor communication and education/medical systems that seem to fight you at every turn and "overwhelming" does not begin to describe the experience.  We are always the exceptions.  We can't come to your social gathering.  We need to sit near the back or near the exits of concerts or church services because we don't want to make too much of a scene.  We are almost always sleep deprived and every small health issue has the potential to escalate into a full-blown medical emergency very quickly.  Look closely into the eyes of a special needs parent and you will see flashes of panic mixed with fatigue.  I tell my staff at Morning Star that you cannot expect parents of our participants to be calm and logical all the time.  They have spent years, sometimes decades, fighting everyone in order to get what their kids need.  If they snap at you it is probably because you are the final tiny straw in an enormous mountain of challenges that they have faced for their children.

     So I thought that I might look to write a devotional for that population in the hopes of speaking peace and encouragement into their lives.  Maybe if I can figure it out and put out enough content, I would even create a mobile app that would have 1 entry per day.  That would be an enormous project, but the first step was creating one devotional.  One day's worth of content.  I decided to start with the Sermon on the Mount.  Here's what I wrote:

"Blessed are the Poor in Spirit...

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.  The he began to speak, and taught them, saying:  'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'-Matthew 5:1-3

This passage has tripped up a lot of people that I know and respect.  Who is Blessed?  The Poor?  The Intellectuals?  Everyone?  No One?  Jesus goes up a mountain in order to see who will follow him.  Those who choose to follow and hear what he had to say are rewarded with the following amazing teaching.  

He starts with blessing those who know that they are broken, as opposed to those who are living under the illusion that they have it all together..."

------------------------------

I stopped and read what I had written.

And then I deleted it all, closed my computer and left my desk.

It was boring and bookish lecturing that did not come anywhere near connecting with my target audience.  There was nothing about the chaos of their lives.  Nothing about the sacrifices that they made for their kids.  Nothing with any theological meat on it.  And since it is a devotional, it should not be very long so every word has to count...every sentence is valuable grammatical real estate and if it doesn't add to the value of the entry it must be purged.

That entire passage had to be purged.

I came back to the computer to try again...but that is a story for tomorrow. 

So you want to be a writer...

If one were to go to Google and type in the phrase, "So you want to be a writer," there are about 277,000,000 results that pop up.  At the top of that list is a poem by Charles Bukowski that addresses would-be authors.  He tells them to turn around and go do something else.  He advises his readers not to write "unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don’t do it." Writers should be driven by passion and zeal. It should physically pain you to not write if you really feel called to be an author.

Well. That's an interesting perspective. I would not say that my soul is withering away when I am unable to write. Maybe there are some other points of view further down the reading list.

Not really. Other articles on this list are not nearly as passionate as Mr Bukowski's poem, but they all say very similar things:

• think long and hard before you decide to become a writer.
• You should live an interesting life before you devote yourself to writing
• There is a lot of competition out there...1,000 new books are published every day
• If you can, do something else

So why become a writer?  I don't think that madness or murder will result from me doing something else.  If I write I will have less time to work with non-profits which directly invest into the good of our community.  My internal critics consistently ask me whether anyone would want to read my works and laugh at the idea that I could make a living in this way.

Again I ask, So why become a writer?  I have come up with three substantial reasons.

• Reason number one:  It is an area that I am good at.  I have the skill mix that enables me to write clearly, connect with the reader on both an intellectual and emotional level, and put in the time and effort to knock out content in a disciplined manner.
• Reason number two:  I enjoy it.  There are a couple of pieces that I really enjoy about writing.  I love wordplay and the clever turn of a phrase.  I love problem solving and writing through solutions for characters to solve in a realistic way.  I also really enjoy writing truth that cuts through all the distraction and chaos of our daily lives in order to shine light on the reality of our lives.
• Reason number three:  I have things to say.  This is the part that I am most tentative to put down, but also what I feel strongest about.  I have received exceptional training in so many arenas:  leadership, the non-profit sector, ministry, Scripture Study, disabilities and developmental delays.  Things that I have a solid foundation in are glaring needs in our society and I am eager to share what I've learned.
• Reason number four:  10 years.  I've got 10 years until my two oldest kids are through college and off on the paths of their lives.  I would rather not spend this next decade too busy and away from home for too many hours to be able to invest in their lives.  This career path could allow me to invest into my kids' lives while we navigate these vital years.

Are these enough to get me through the tragedy and misery that was promised by the internet?  Here's hoping.

Scattered

     As the title of this post suggests, I am all over the place at the moment so I am just going to dive right in.

     My last day of my current job is this coming Friday.  This transition is happening about a month earlier than we planned so I do not have another position lined up yet..  Needless to say, I have been scouring the job boards and local websites to see if there are any great fits just hanging there, waiting for me to walk through the doors.  So far, the answer to that is a resounding "No."

Hold on for a second while I go and check Craigslist again...

Still no.  Disappointing.

For those of you who do not know me well, allow me to introduce myself through one of my favorite mediums:  Bulletpoints

• I am a lifelong Alaskan.  Born and raised in Fairbanks, I went outside for college and a couple years of college ministry then moved back in 2000 with...
• My amazing wife of 17 years, Carina.  She is an artist, spiritual director, avid reader and lover of the strange...which is how she ended up with me.
• I have three kids.  A 15 year old boy on the Autism Spectrum.  A 12 year old girl who is destined to rule the world and a 4 year old girl with enough personality to hold her own in the face of the other two.
• My work background is filled with service.  I was a college/youth pastor for 15 years right out of college.  After a transitional two year stint of managing receiving at Sears (otherwise known as the dark days) I discovered the Non-profit sector.  I was the Executive Director of a youth center/skate park and then moved into being the ED of a day services center for individuals with Disabilities and Delays.

For someone who graduated college with a BA in History and has lived in the middle of Alaska for most of his life, my resume is actually coming together and looking fairly substantial.  I have experience in management, grant writing, fundraising, communications, strategic planning, supervision, human resources, budgeting, facilities management, public speaking/training and lots of other bits and pieces.

I've also published a book.  It's a young adult Christian Supernatural Adventure Novel called "The Seer."  It's great.  You should pick up a copy and enjoy it for yourself...or at least you should if you could find it.  My publisher just went out of business so that book and the sequel that is 85% done are now back at square one for publication.

So here's where I find myself.  I will not have a job in a week.  I have a large number of marketable skills but Fairbanks does not have an overabundance of employers looking for those skills. I have a few applications submitted and I a waiting for the interview process to begin.  Best case scenario, I find a great new job in the next couple of weeks, but all options are on the table. Moving is on the table.  Finding a new career here in Fairbanks is on the table.  Working from home and becoming a professional writer is on the table.

Actually that last one is more than just on the table; that is the direction that I want to go in the long term.  My books and blogs and short stories have been well received, but writing has mostly been a hobby up until this point.  I would love to become a full-time, professional writer, but the road map for how to do that is fuzzy.  It is a combination of style and skill and market and finding a niche and being disciplined to produce content and outreach and several other pieces that I don't even know yet.  According to experts on the internet and books that I've read, I should start a blog and finish my books and get an agent and make an app and create a instagram/twitter presence and submit articles and attend conferences and do NaNoWriMo again...all at the same time.  While still making sure the family can eat.

As you can tell, I'm feeling scattered.  Dozens of potential options and scenarios are racing through my head about what comes next.  But I know that I want to start writing consistently.

So I bought myself a desk.  It is nothing elaborate, but it is new and an upgrade from the recycled door sitting on file cabinets that I have used off an on for years.  The desk has my computer, a printer and a lamp on it at the moment.  I am sure that it will accumulate more, but right now it is pretty sparse.  This space is specifically designated to be where I write.  New books or articles...blog posts...edits of older works.  They all start here.  It is functional and symbolic.  If I really want to become a writer, this is where it will happen.  It will be utilized and organized to meet deadlines and roll out pages worth of content.  If I don't have the commitment to become a writer, the desk will become just another shelf, filled with all the other things that pull at my energy and attention.

So this is my desk and this is my blog about my journey to become a writer with all of the excitement and fear and frustration and joy that accompanies it.  You are welcome to come along for the (hopefully long and successful) journey.

James