Frustration

So yesterday we had Day One of a two day audit from a company - an overseas company, in this case.

An audit, you say? In my line of business, companies verify that their vendors or potential vendors are operating in compliance with appropriate codes and regulations by performing an audit. Typically these are one or two day events which involve a presentation, a tour, and lots of document review. Since I have arrived at New Company, we've had 3-4, with promise of at least three more before the end of the year.

They're a bit of a pain, because of course you have no other focus during the day except the audit. You pull paperwork, you sit, you answer questions, you try to explain some things away, you prepare your responses in your head as they read the observations. Then you go back exhausted (they always eat up a great deal of energy) the next day to put everything back in place, prepare your formal responses, and then catch up on all the work that didn't get done.

Did I mention they're not my favorite thing?

This particular audit has turned out to be more interesting, because I was apparently put in charge of it even though I don't know much about the project and really have no power to do anything. The one in charge apparently assumed that I would take care of everything (it's in my job description, right?) even though I was never allowed to actually talk to the clients or understand the project. Then, when observations are made, it's "Why didn't we catch this?" and "What will we do to fix this by tomorrow?" (the we, of course, being me).

It's very frustrating. It's being made responsible for the conduct and outcome of something you have no control of. It also frustrates me on a grander career level, as these things come and go, yet the fruits of them - that ever popular "results produce good things" - never really seems to pan out. If you're successful, it's taken for granted. If they fail, you're left with fixing failures that you are not really responsible for.

If this is the road to success, I want nothing more to do with it.

Roll of Thunder

The sky has been cracking all this AM. Not with the piddly Old Home thunder booms, with maybe one, then a long silence, then another one, but with the long, rolling booms, the cracks the just seem to carry on and on, the explosions of sound that literally rattle the house.

It was a good reminder this morning of what I was reading last evening, Revelation 6, with the coming of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse - or even an extension of the evening before with Revelation 5. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in myself and my life that I forget the vastness and majesty - and power - of God.

As I read and studied and thought on the matter, what amazed me is the double shortsightedness of myself: one, that I sometimes take the whole character of God for granted (love versus hatred of evil and justice), and two, that if I believe that there truly is an end of the world and judgement (and if you die tomorrow, it's essentially the end of the world for you), that I continue to trifle so often with lesser things and take that which is eternal less seriously than that which is temporal, engaging in the breezes of conversation today ignoring the hurricane that is God's judgement tomorrow.

Such weakness of character shames me.

Picking Up Where I Left Off

Yesterday I did something I truly think I have only done a handful of times.

As I believe I mentioned in August, I lost my planner - or at least misplaced it, since no-one called about it and knowing me, that's quite possible. I have had a very defined path in the past when I fail at something or make what I consider a foolish mistake (or even, if I think about it, when I come to the realization that to be the best, it will take a lot more than where I am at): I simply stop doing it.

In the past, this would have meant that I stopped using the planner, that I shrug and never mention it again, or maybe just talk about it as "In the past, I used to do this."

But, for the first time that I can remember in a long time, I picked up where I left off.

I went to Wal-Mart and picked up another book (I use accounts receivable books - they're cheap and small), and spent part of yesterday getting ready - not just with the basic layout, but with recopying all the information that I typical put in one: quotes, numbers, addresses. I am ready, at least for the last quarter of the year, to continue to document and organize.

Do I still feel foolish about misplacing the other one? Sure I do. But foolish enough to consciously ignore the fact that it is a useful tool and I need to be more organized, not less? I don't think so.

Just because I stumbled does not mean I failed. I only fail if I stop there instead of standing up, dusting myself off, and picking up where I left off.

Morning Walks

I have been taking Syrah for walks in the morning at New Home.

I had not intended to take her originally - morning was really my alone time, so I would try to slip out and walk/run. Unfortunately for my "quiet", Syrah has fine hearing, and one day The Ravishing Mrs. TB requested that I take her with me (or at least shut the bedroom door) because after I left she was a little excited - which, at 5:15 AM, is a bit of a problem.

So out we went.

Walking here is very different than walking in Old Home. We are about a mile from the freeway, which is farther than we used to be, and there are trees and buildings between us and it. The result is that remarkably, walking through our neighborhood in an Urban area feels much more isolated than walking did in our small town. Especially early in the morning, nobody is out (it's a new home thing - people just start later here). We've also been blessed with cool rainy weather (mid 60's), so it is incredibly pleasant. We walk around the neighborhoods, past the legions of oak trees and the homes which are (for the most part) dark, the lawns which are (thankfully here!) green, and occasional garden snake or possum that stumbles across our path.

So we walk, Syrah and I - sometimes run - just enjoying the quiet and the dark and the cool. I used to just value the time with myself and God, but now I think I value the time with myself, God, and Syrah more.

Ticket for an Aeroplane

So I'm going to see Otis and Buttercup in November, actually following up on a plan I made.

Back in January, before the layoff, Otis and I discussed going to see a speaker we both value as he was going to be appearing in Seattle. "Hey", I said, "Why don't I just fly up there and see it with you? We can go, hang out, mock you, say hi to the beautiful Buttercup, and wander on my way?"

"Sounds good, especially the mocking me part" said Otis (or at least, that's how I recall the conversation running).

And then the layoffs came, with all the chaos that ensued. Otis asked me once or twice "Are we still on?" and I'd always answer "Sure".

So then it came to crunch time - this week. Not sure how I was going to pay for it, and was thinking about not doing it. And then the thought hit me: this was a commitment that I made to myself. I would not back out on a commitment I made to others - why do I treat myself with less respect?

How to pay? Suddenly, the thought drifted in my head "You've got miles on United you've never used. How about those?". And earlier in the week, I got my "rebate" from the phone company in the form of a Visa gift card. And there, amazingly enough, my inability to solve the practical side was solved (That whole "God is in Control" thing).

There are a couple of lessons I draw from this:

1) (And I should know this) Keep the commitments you make to yourself. Worry about that foremost. The rest will work itself out.

2) If you want something bad enough, a way will appear. Don't discount the hand of God in our lives.

So off I will go in November to enjoy the cool Pacific Northwest and friends.

And, of course, mocking Otis. He told me it was okay...

Endzones

Part of my attempt to reinvent my life is in my schedule. Simply put, my ability to schedule my own life is appalling, especially in light of the fact that I have some known factors: I know that I need to leave the house by 6:30 AM to arrive at 7:00 AM for work, and I know that it takes me a while to get up in the morning, so I really need to get up around 5:00 AM to manage myself and be sure I'm awake when I drive. I am also one of those individuals which needs at least 7 hours of sleep a night to function - otherwise I am less focused during the day and loss my concentration and energy at night, negating every attempt to do anything else.

So I realized last night that I need to introduce some structure into my life, some fixed points - self discipline, if you will. The first - indeed the easiest - is bedtime. It strike me as interesting because I am always calling on Na Clann to be in bed on time, but don't apply the same standard to myself even though the same natural laws apply to me. So based on all of the above, I set the bedtime: 10:00 PM. I have to be in bed - not in bed with a book, not brushing my teeth to be in bed, not even praying -in bed, lights out at 10.

My thought is that if I can start to ingrain these endzones in my life - when I get up, when I go to sleep- I will not only have energy and a sense of regularity, I will always begin to introduce a greater level of structure to my life. With structure comes discipline and with discipline comes the ability to both achieve more and achieve better.

And, of course, more sleep.

Rawness of Soul

This thought floated through my head this morning as I took Syrah the Mighty for a walk this morning.

"Well Hello" I said. "Where are you from?"

The thought refused to answer me. It just kind of hung there to the edge of my vision at the right, apparently avoiding getting run over by the dog as she investigated the night's scents.

"Okay, fine then. Keep your secrets" I muttered as I continued along. "If you won't co-operate, I'll do it on my own."

So on I walked, the dog straining at her leash back and forth across the road, as I pondered and the thought floated along beside me.

Was my soul feel raw? No doubt about it. What did that mean precisely? A sense of unhappiness and anger running through all my activities; a sense of helplessness in the face of life.

Helpless in the face of life? Yes. How helpless? Helpless in the sense of feeling that I have so very little control over vast swaths of my life and that I am essentially unable to take control - in fact, that even if I got control, I wouldn't know what to do.

Goals, yes, I know. Goals are supposed to help that -except when you seem to have problems setting them, and the ones that you do set seem impossible to achieve the moment you set them.

Which leaves one feeling trapped, a cog in a giant machine, with nothing but more of the same tomorrow - which leads to rawness of soul, become upset at the slightest thing.

"So if that's the idea" I asked, "How do I overcome it?" The thought just kind of drifted off a little more to the right, closemouthed (as so many thoughts are) about anything other than its existence.

But even though it wouldn't talk, the question still remains. I think I have an answer, I'm just not sure how to apply it: For me at least, it just takes one thought to cascade onto a different thought pattern. What is that one thought, that one action, that will be lodestone for a different set of cascading thoughts?

Permission to Succeed

I hit a moment Friday night when I left work 2 hours after I intended to. The reason: at 1615, my boss brought me a presentation which I had created to make to executive management, one he had a week at least. The verdict: it was lacking two things, and therefore we couldn't move it on for review prior to presenting it.

As I drove away, having put something together, my frustration bubbled over in the car. I've been here before, done this before - the whole "Get something together because it's your job but you can't do anything with it". In a real way, it feels like I'm living the same day over and over again at different jobs.

But then a thought rose to the top this morning, as I continued to replay the tape of the whole experience in my head: What am I doing here?

Not in the sense of this job (Been down the "Let's do something different RIGHT NOW!" path. That didn't go so well), but in the sense of my life. I constantly seem to be putting myself in the position of being a worker without decision making power or ability. The fact that more often that not I seem to let it happen in my personal life doesn't help matters either.

And then, floating down gently from where I put it two weeks ago, the thought came down "Why do you not give yourself permission to succeed?"

Permission to succeed? Seems axiomatic, doesn't it? That's the point - we don't go about our life with the intent to fail. Do we?

Success is scary. Striving to succeed means you make a commitment to something, and let other things go. It means that you may have no evidence that you will succeed except for the belief in you. Success means you are constantly trying to move forward, slowly or imperceptibly at times, but forward nonetheless. It means that you grasp that you are the one who has to do this: no-one can (or will) do this for you.

And that is scary. It is far easier to slip into the mode of just showing up, doing what's required of you, and going home - except when the realization gnaws at you that you are capable of more - in my case, than of arguing the case of need for failure rates of quarterly projects.

But one has to get permission from one's self. Otherwise (as I've discovered to my shame) you spend endless amounts of time and energy working yourself up to it only to say "No, I don't really deserve that. I should just be content."

In a very real sense, I need to practice the concept of shinigurai - literally Japanese for "being crazy to die", the idea of leaping into the jaws of death. I need to be crazy - crazy to succeed. As my quote to the right says, "Common sense will not accomplish great things. Simply become insane and desperate (shinigurai arimasu)."

Elsewise, 20 years from now, I will still be preparing reports to be buried in files and forgotten.

One Month

Today represents the one month anniversary of An Toglach being here in New Home, of us being together.

In many ways, it has been good: Na Clann have adjusted, the house has come together nicely (and is continuing to do so), The Ravishing Mrs. TB has started making connections with people, Syrah the Mighty has not tried to dig out of yard once.

And me? I'm hanging in there. Getting used to a commute - although a much reduced one - has been a bit of a challenge, as has getting adjusted to a new schedule of rising. It will be handy to have the house in Old Home taken care of, and hopefully that last step will get started this week.

Honestly, the biggest challenge I am facing this moment is not falling back into the same rut - using this as a springboard to evaluate my life and activities therein, and perhaps make changes (after all, we're only gaining speed downhill now!) instead of just doing what I've always done -or rushing into doing a great many more things. It's odd how much creatures of habit we can become.

Getting and Becoming II

This whole thought? metaphor? of getting versus becoming has really taken off for me as a point of consideration - probably because it is simple enough for my limited mind to wrap itself around. It has given me a peg to hang so many of my daily activities and actions around - "What are you becoming by doing this? What are you not becoming by doing this?" - that it becomes one of those concepts which are deceptively simple but life changing in their application.

But it leads me down the second road, which is "What do you want to become?" Rats - I knew there was some deep effort of thought involved here. I just thought I had moved beyond it.

So what do I want to become? The immediate, I-should-answer-this-way response is "to become more Christlike." Okay, right enough - but what does that mean (again, one of those deceptively simple responses that becomes life changing in their application)? What does that mean on a practical basis in my relationship with God, my relationship with my wife and family and coworkers, with the world at large? (Side thought: I always thank God for what I am getting - do I thank Him for what I am becoming and petition for more?)

In a work sense (since I spend so much time there), what does this mean? Some thoughts:
- What will your next job be?
- Where will it be?
- What will your title be and what will you be doing?
- When will you make the switch?

From here (working backwards), what I should I be in the process of becoming to get to that endpoint?

Or all the other activities in my life: what do I want to become by them? If they are nothing but time fillers, are they needed? Can I work back from the end, get to where I am now, and consider what I need to be doing?

Like I said, deceptively simple but life changing in application.

Getting and Becoming

In digging through my desk drawer at work yesterday rifling through articles that one always saves from industry magazines in the vain hope that one day it will be useful, I suddenly came across one that was useful - but not in the way that I thought.

It was called "Short Term Benefits or Long Term Growth? Are short term rewards keeping you on a career plateau?" The author , one D. G. Jensen, starts by looking at his own career growth, and suddenly coming to the point that he realizes he is valuing the comfort of the known versus increasing his value "because it was the easiest thing to do". He then reflects on those individuals (he's a recruiter) who have been the best candidates, and notes that they are always focusing on long term goals and measuring their opportunities within and without of a company.

He then quotes Jim Rohn from Seven Keys to Wealth and Happiness, who says to ask a question of yourself regularly - not "What am I getting? " (i.e. salary, benefits, "perks"), but "What am I becoming?"

From the article: "He (Rohn) believes that what you become in your career direct influences what you get on the job, and that by keeping you eye on this aspect of your personal development you will be far more richly rewarded. Jim advises that you check back regularly to make certain that you are becoming a person who provides increasing value to whomever employs you."

This article struck a chord in me - not just in my career, for which I needed the reminder, but personally. Getting versus becoming. Too often in my own life, I am more concerned with the immediate gratification - the getting - than the things that take time and effort, but make a difference farther down the road - the becoming.

It also raises the importance and levels of goals - after all, how can you aim for the target that you don't know, don't see, or don't have?

But it comes back to those darn choices again: to do A, I cannot do be. To have some goals, I cannot have others. There are, of course, always things in life that we cannot do - but I am allowing my indecision and the "getting" of the feeling of choice to defeat the "becoming" of achieving something - indeed anything.

Another good question to ask myself during the day: What am I becoming?

Ave atque Vale

Something I failed to write about almost two weeks ago - by choice mostly - was the passing of our last cat, Cedric. I could, I suppose, come up with many rationalizations as to why I didn't write on it; the reality is, it's still a little painful.

Cedric was the first of the cats we got in 1994. We adopted him from the pound: we pulled him out of the cage, he put his paws around my neck, and we were done.

He was a loving cat - he loved to sleep with me and Allison on the bed, loved to get petted. Even later, after he moved out to the garage because of urinating inside, he was still always happy to see us, running up in the morning chirping, ready for his morning food, even tolerating Na Clann to pet him.

He went outdoor sometime around 2003-2004, and seemed to love it: he never wandered too far from the house, loved laying out in the sun, and generally seemed happy. Because he was out during the day, we saw less of each other.

By a fluke of the move (and his travel arrangements), he ended up sleeping in my lap or under my seat most of the drive out here in August. He was already so thin then but still happy. It was a happy experience, as we had not spent so much time together in a while. He purred and was very happy.

I'm not sure if the move, or the change, or even the temperature change (although he was inside) did something, but he suddenly started to decline rapidly - he was, by that time, at least 15 years older if not more. Finally, one Thursday two weeks ago, we made the trip to vets. The vet looked at him and said "It looks like you've gone just about as far as you can go."

And with that, we were done.

He's out on the side of the house now, underneath two irises in the sun he loved to sleep in so much.

Hail and Farewell, Old Friend.

Recognition

I had one of those jarring moments at work about two weeks ago - the kind you look back on and say "Hey, that was a fork in the road and I don't think I missed it - for once."

As I believe I mentioned, we had a quasi-regulatory audit at work. A big deal actually - without receiving a favorable audit report, our ability to sell product here and abroad would be compromised. Myself and my department work incredibly hard to ensure a successful audit, including long hours over two weeks spent to make sure everything was attended to.

After the audit, which was successful, I looked to my manager and asked him if someone was going to publish something to the company (we're 95 people, so it's not as if we're big) mentioning the successful audit. "No" was the response. I kept waiting for someone of higher authority to say something, but I was (apparently) waiting in vain. Finally I went to my boss again and said "Does anyone ever notify anyone here?" Again, the response was "No".

And then suddenly it burst on my consciousness like the rapid dawn that I was looking for something out of work, and life, that I would simply not find: thanks for what was done.

I realized that over my life, I've come to expect to be recognized in some form or fashion for at least results, if not effort. Probably this is a reflection of the fact that I am pretty good at school, which always recognizes effort.

The sad reality (and the one I realized) is that in fact effort will not be realized, and probably not success either - at least by others. Sure, the results may result in something - or they may not. But one shouldn't count on it.

In a sense, how incredibly freeing. Suddenly, I do not have to go around thinking I will be recognized and wondering why I am not - I'm not going to be. On the other hand, it frees me from the tyranny of having to wait for the recognition to begin or to assess my ability to do a good job.

It also means that I've elevated men and women to the place of God: people will not always recognize effort and success; God always will, in eternity if not here.

Whether on earth I move forward or do not, it now lies in my hands. To wait for the approbation or support of others, even though it might be nice, is naive at best and foolish at worst.

Garage Packages

The garage is in its essentially "organized" state pending a further going through by The Ravishing Mrs. TB. I finished it up this morning, as with the rain throughout the day there was not much else to do outside. Pending a little shifting, the Conveyance should be able to fit in there.

It was one of those moments, the kind that seem to come repeatedly when one is packing or unpacking: where did all this stuff come from? Why did we save it? What does it do?

Blame it on my father if you will: he has become increasingly minimalist as he goes, not so much for things which are useful but for things which aren't. I'm trying to become more so myself, always asking (or trying to ask) "Do we need this? What will it do for us?"

Having to unpack items hauled halfway across the country is one thing. Having to look at the value of everything you have (when it was new, of course) and indexed for inflation after trying to crawl your way out from under a business failure and a short sale.

Try to make better decisions, of course. Try to encourage your children to do it to: No, we don't need everything we see. Yes, saving money is not nearly as fun but is far more valuable.

The older I get, the more I tend to value money, not for the money, but for the freedom and independence it represents.

Priorities

God is banging on my life again, trying to get my attention - about time.

As I have come to figure out my schedule here in New Home, and begun to realize the issues of reconnecting the parts that have been disconnected, I realized that 1) I'm not spending the amount and quality of time with God that I should for what I profess, and 2) I'm not spending the amount and quality of time with my family that I should (having been disconnected by distance).

And now, looking at the time that exists combined with moving, it begins to become clear that there is not all the time in the world and that some hard choices have to be made at this juncture.

Three of the choices - My relationship with God, my relationship with my family, and health (i.e. exercise and nutrition) were not at all difficult to make, as they are truly critical (even the health - if you lose that, you can do so much less). The difficulty came when I started looking at the other things.

I gave myself a limit of five: five things to focus my life around and on. Leaving the three aside, I came up with four more for two positions: an independent lifestyle, Japanese (language), writing (for a book), and playing the harp).

The independent lifestyle - financially, and to the greatest point possible materially, took position number four. We - I - need to get serious about that, especially since it is my earnings that will largely be responsible for my family's future, and it gives me the opportunity to practice being more independent.

Which left the one and the three. I have wrestled with each, measuring pros and cons, what do I like to do, what would be the most beneficial to do. And then the thought occurred: Why not let God decide?

So I have given it over to Him. I'll try to do all three just to try but I'm in no hurry; the biggest thing is to continually pray and reflect on them. If I get more than one, great. If I only get one - and that one is what God wants - then that's okay too.

Doldrums

I realized something this afternoon as I was on a date with Nighean dhonn:

I'm depressed.

And how, you might ask, would I realize this from a date with my daughter?

It struck me as we were going through Borders, looking at books - which constitutes virtually one of the perfect activities for me. As I was looking through, toying with the idea of purchasing a book, suddenly the thought came to me "Why? What for? Is it a wise use of your money?"

Suddenly my reading material of the last week and its tendencies - fantasy and sci fi - made total sense to me: escapism. It meshed with the feeling of dissatisfaction I have been fighting for the last month or so: inability to concentrate on things I am doing, a general lack of enthusiasm for anything.

In an odd way, it is not the sense I usually have from depression: a definite sense of downness, of sadness. It's much more of a listlessness's of the soul, a lack of interest in anything.

So here's the question: not having a severe sense of sadness or any motivation, how does one restart one's engine?

The Month That Was

So hello September! August, we hardly knew ye...


August was a whirlwind of activity for numerous reasons:

1) Getting our rental in New Home.

2) Driving back from New Home with the animals

3) Having all our worldly possessions put into our home by movers - and then trying to find them!

4) Having to say goodbye to two old friends (Cedric and Fergus) within 3 weeks of each other.

5) Having The Ravishing Mrs. TB and Na Clann arrive here from Old Home.

6) Having to completely manage my first audit from an NGO that allows us to market product.

Whew!

What strikes me as I now try to dig back out from the rubble of what is my life is what creatures of habit we can become. A little disruption to my schedule, and suddenly all of my good intentions and goals fall apart. Which raises the question: how seriously was I committed to those things anyway?

It's easy to develop a regime and goal living on your own, confining your responsibilities and actions to yourself. It's much more difficult to do the same when you have the reality of life impinging in.

Yet I continue to cling to those things as if I could accomplish them, when in fact it may more be a case of my pride rather than realistic chances.

What are goals? What are meaningful things? What has true value, what is valueless, and what is merely to make me feel better about myself?

To Hell with Fear

So this weekend has been something of an epiphany for me. It's been a twofold process: on the one hand, losing my planner with some materials in them; on the other, reading Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing. The result has been somewhat freeing.

In other words To Hell with Fear.

I have suffered from fear of most anything for a great many years now. Fear of anything, but it can really be traced back to fear of others. Fear of what they would think, fear of what they would do. If you never lived it, you have no idea how crippling it can be.

But it hit me yesterday as I was driving home from work that I couldn't control that. In regards with the planner, it was either gone or not. If not, someone will either call or not. Either way, I can't control it. If I can't control it, why am I afraid of it? The dark monster that we call fear is probably more often than not one that we create by ourselves, or at least inflate beyond its original size.

And the fear of others? In my work, my ability to work and succeed is based largely on the actions of others. If they don't do their job, I don't have one. So am I willing to sacrifice my job - nay, my career - just so folks that I will probably never see after this position (and at my typical job stay time, this is 1-2 years) will like me?

And the Bradbury reference? I'll have to expound on that later - suffice it to say that he writes passionately about the process of writing, of not caring what other say. Words I need to take to heart.

Life is too short to live in terror of what might happen.

Fear and Panic

Overswept by a moment of panic this morning, when I realized that the audits I hoped we were going to have another month to prepre for are coming in two weeks.

Yikes.

But in this moment, I need to make a decision: to consciously push down the fear and actually take action.

This is a often a problem for me: something happens, I get upset, and then rather than think of the action that I can take, I panic and think of everything that can go wrong and how we're not going to do well.

That's a good way to fail.

Instead of panicking, why not take a minute and make a plan of action? No worse than just freaking out, and who knows, might do okay.

Who knows, might even pass.

Leaving

As I walk around
where my life used to take place,
Look: full moon smiles down.

Last Night

At 9:40 PM this evening, the Ravishing Mrs. TB comments to me "You know, the first night we moved into this house, you spent the night here alone; now the last night we're here, you are again spending the night here alone."

In a way, that kind of sums up this entire weekend: a whirlwind tour of endings being the same as beginnings.

Our house was packed up into a van in about six hours; in a moment of almost sheer absurdity, the driver asked me to value our possessions (for insurance purposes). I almost laughed out loud: my physical belongings are reduced to a number on a sheet of paper and sum which I pull out my head with no real meaning (how does one place a value on sentiment?).

I was commenting to Uisdean Ruadh on Sunday night that in a way, this represented yet another slow falling away of The Firm (we used the commission on the house as part of the down payment) - the course that was set 5 years ago coming to it's tired conclusion, like Magellen's last circumnavigating ship limping home to Spain - without Magellan. "I failed" I told Uisdean Ruadh. "I failed to hold things together. I should have been able to keep the house."

"You haven't failed" he replied. "You did your best. No-one can dispute that. Sometimes things don't work out."

Sometimes things don't work out - or sometimes they're in God's hands. Either way, it leaves one feeling powerless and somewhat failed.

So I sit here tonight in a house devoid of everything, kept company by a dog, a rabbit, and a cat. The house is not the same as when we moved in: the walls are painted but scuffed, the backyard is landscaped but overgrown, the interior echoing not with laughter or voices but with silence.

But the biggest difference between when I moved in and tonight is that the house echoes with memories tonight: dogs, cats and rabbits run through it, family parties and friends over for dinner, the sound of daughters laughing and crying and arguing and praying.

The difference, I suppose, is that unlike painted walls, memories are things you can take with you. Sometimes, as Uisdean Ruadh says, things don't work out, but you do your best.

Hanging at Krispy Kreme

Today I got up for the first time at my new rental at New Home, checked on the rabbit, watered my dead grass carpet that is my new lawn (lawn care expectation: very low), showered, and then realized I had until 3:00 PM to figure out something to do. I wanted to check my Internet, coffee sounded like a good idea, and it is, after all, Saturday.

Lucky for me Krispy Kreme is nearby.

Not only did I get the Internet, coffee, and a doughnut, I got a sample doughnut as well - sort of a free two for one!

It's a bit interesting (not the doughnuts of course, although the lemon filled is tasty!), because I think this is the first time in at least a month I've gone out and actually sat down, and the first time I've actually gone with no other reason than to sit and eat and relax. I'd like to say it's because I'm trying to be frugal - and sure, that's involved - but just as much it's a sense of relief of the end being near.

I honestly feel a sense of relaxing, something that I haven't felt in some time. The move is happening, the last great drive is happening, home is finally "home", and life can actually start to get back to a sense of normality.

Oddly enough, I'm reminded of order as I sit here and watch the doughnut machine: Chains and platforms rising and falling, the tops of doughnuts floating through the oil, coming up on the conveyor belt on the line, then going under the line to get sugar. There is a calm sense of placid operation as I sit here at the window and watch the doughnuts slowly roll by in ordered rows.

Aha, you say, he's finally lost it. Doughnuts and order, 80's music playing in background, sitting on aluminum chairs and he finds some relation to "relaxing".

You're probably right - but at the same time, there's a feeling that a great weight is about to fall off my shoulders, of moving on with the next chapters of our lives. If that's encompassed in a Doughnut (lemon filled, no less!), so be it. You psychoanalyze.

I'll let the coffee wash the residual sugar down my throat and just be.

Ave atque Vale

Fergus the Timid left us yesterday.

Fergus was the youngest of our group of three cats - indeed, he was born in the basement of our home in August 1994. He was a coward - he lived most of his life under things, whether a bed, a series of boxes, or under a couch - but a loving cat when he was out.

His health was never good, but especially not after 2002, when he had a terrible respiratory infection. He survived, but apparently at the cost of a heightened immune system, which attacked the enamel of his teeth (causing him to lose all of them). It affected his digestion as well - his litter box was never a pleasure to clean up!

But he was generally a happy cat as far as cats go, happy to see you (once he got over being freaked out by you!), happy to see the girls, always ready to have a pet.

His death comes literally days before our relocation to New Home - the providence of God I suppose, as he probably would not have made it here. We will miss him of course - he'll be buried out by Sasha in the back yard - but in the miracle of God's providence, Midnite the rabbit has come - perhaps for the whole purpose of helping us with our loss.

Sorrow

I was overcome by a wave of despondency this morning as I drove to sign our lease in New Home - almost shockingly so.

I have no idea why. Things seem to be going along fairly well at work and with the move. Very soon, The Ravishing Mrs. TB, Na Clann, Syrah the Mighty, the cats, and the rabbits and I will all be together.

So why so sad?

As I finished signing the lease, got my keys, and headed back to work, I realized what it was: pride and sorrow.

We have had a house for the last 9 years. It was our house. We could do what we wanted with it. It was ours.

To lease is to be humble. To admit, at least for me, that in some small way, I am not in control anymore. To ask for permission instead of acting on things like pets or room colors. To pay only for living, making someone else money instead of ourselves. To be struck, in one brief shining moment, of just how little control I seem to have.

The whole weight of the everything that has happened came plummeting into my soul like a ton of bricks, held in my hand by a pair of jingling keys for home I will live in but is not mine.

This is not where I intended to be.

Little Rivers

"It is not required of every man...to be, or to do, something great; most of us must content ourselves with taking small parts in the chorus, as far as possible without discord. Shall we have no little lyrics because Homer and Dante have written epics? Even those who have greatness thrust upon them will do well to lay the burden down now and then and congratulate themselves that they are not altogether answerable for the conduct of the universe. 'I reckon', said a cowboy to me one day, as we were riding through the Badlands of Dakota, 'there's someone bigger than me running this outfit. He can tend to it well enough while I smoke my pipe after the round-up.'

There is such a thing as taking ourselves and the world too seriously, or at any rate too anxiously. Half of the secular unrest and dismal sadness of modern society comes from the vain idea that every man is bound to be a critic of life and to let no day pass without finding some fault with the general order of things or projecting some plan for its improvement. And the other half comes from the greedy notion that a man's life does not consist, after all, in the abundance of the things that he possesses and that it is somehow or other more respectable and pious to be always at work making a larger living that it is to lie on your back in the green pastures and beside the still waters and thank God that you are alive.

And so I wish that your winter fire may burn clear and bright while you read these pages and that the summer days may be fair and the fish may willingly rise to your hook whenever you follow one of these little rivers." - Henry Drummond (1851-1897), Scottish writer and evangelist

Bible Study and Prayer

Another question from my Failure Day IV list (I've taken the liberty of organizing them by personal, marriage, and family): How much time do you spend reading the Bible and praying each day? Is it commensurate with the time you spend in non-eternal affairs?

Something I've always fallen short in. It is remarkable to me that, being someone who loves to read, that I have such difficulty really sitting down and reading the Bible - reading it with intensity and and attention I would give a good secular book or a text for a test, really digging in and studying, making applications from the text. Too often, it's the sort of thing I do haphazardly if at all.

Prayer is the same way: More often than not, it's a struggle to get out of bed to pray in the morning ("You know, God doesn't care where I am and after all, I'm warm") or in the evening ("I'm so tired -really hard to focus"), or to pray during the day ("This sounds too short and foolish - prayer is supposed to be a formal thing").

The thing I notice as I write these is that in both cases, these involve our communication with God: in reading the Bible, we receive (hear) God speak through His word; in praying, we speak to God, bringing our sins and our cares, aligning our wills to His. That is interesting to me because I spend a lot of time every day communicating with people, and trying to ensure that they have a full and pleasant communication with me, yet I don't do the same thing with God?

And time spent in Bible reading and praying versus non-temporal matters? That's just embarrassing on the face of it. If I spend 30 minutes a day in prayer and Bible reading, I so often feel that I've "reached my max" - yet I can talk to folks on the phone far longer than that, or dedicate an hour or two every day to any temporal activity.

And I wonder why my life is seemingly bereft of God's power and wisdom.

I've made a few changes since I moved. Following the tradition of George Mueller, I now read the Scriptures kneeling morning and night (I use something to rest on if I'm losing the feeling in my legs - no sense in being stubborn about it). Mueller did it to demonstrate both his reverence for the Scriptures as well as his willingness to receive God's word. I will say that it has allowed me to focus more on what I am reading.

I've also changed up my annual reading program (there are many good programs out there that will get you through the Bible in a year), but have added to it by reading my main program out loud morning and evening. This forces me to slow down and think about what I am reading. In the slow down department as well, for books I am reading (secular and non-secular), I am sitting with pen in hand, underlining as I go - I find that this again forces me to slow down and ponder what I am reading.

In the prayer department, I am still woefully inadequate. I was one that was brought up praying eyes closed and kneeling, so prayer lists were not something that I was used to using. I have tried to be better about this for about 5 years - it's a long process, even just in the recalling of writing the requests down and remembering to pray over them.

One of the strengths of the ascetic tradition of the Catholic Church is that they take regular times during the day to worship and pray. This is something I should incorporate more fully into my life as well.

The motto of the Cistercian Order is Laboare est Orare, To work is to pray. This is also something that I think would improve my sense of serving God daily: that my work, done well, is another way for me to give glory to God (and something I could give glory to Him eight hours a day doing).

I can only state for myself, the lack of greater Bible Study and prayer means a greater lack of spiritual growth and power in my own life. The fact that my experience seems to reflect so much of the church today suggests that this problem is not unique to me.

Uisdean Ruadh a rithis

I spoke with Uisdean Ruadh tonight. He's been laid off - again. This would make twice in a year, both times in August. If you've a prayer or a thought for him, he'd be much in appreciation.

Spiritual Gifts

I started wrestling last night with the first of my questions to myself: What are your spiritual gifts?

That presumes a first question, which is what are the spiritual gifts? And that, as the saying goes, is the rest of the story...

It seems that there are a great deal of definitions concerning what are spiritual gifts, depending on where you find them, when you believe they are active (i.e. dispensationalism), or who you happen to be reading.

So I started a different angle: a quote I found from John Piper on the Internet:

“The conclusion I draw from these parallels is this: a spiritual gift is an expression of faith which aims to strengthen faith. It is activated from faith in us and aims for faith in another. Another way to put it would be this: A spiritual gift is an ability given by the Holy Spirit to express our faith effectively (in word or deed) for the strengthening of someone else's faith.”

Now there's a definition I can start with. If you dig a little more into reading, you find some additional thoughts:

1) A spiritual gift is not necessarily a skill or talent. It is something that is supernaturally given, something given only to those indwelt by the Holy Spirit. You can have individuals who are supremely talented, but are not spiritually gifted.

2) A spiritual gift is not given for the benefit of an individual, but the benefit of the body. If someone is using a gift to glorify themselves rather than build up the body, I would be suspect of their claim as a "spiritual" gift.

3) There are aspects of spiritual gifts which we should all manifest: e.g. we should all have faith, show mercy, give generously, serve, be evangelists, etc. It's just that some are spiritually gifted above and beyond such as George Mueller or Hudson Taylor, (Faith), Billy Graham (Evangelism), any of the great teachers that have existed through the ages (Teaching/Pastor).

The major New Testament passages for spiritual gifts occur in Romans 12: 6-8, 1st Corinthians 12: 7-10, Ephesians 4: 11-12, and 1st Peter 4: 10-11. In no particular order they are: ministry (helps), prophesy/proclaiming, giving, knowledge, wisdom, exhortation, leading (administration), mercy, faith, discerning of spirits, evangelism, pastor, and teaching. Other verses include celibacy, hospitality, missionary, martyrdom, and voluntary poverty.

(You'll notice I've excluded healings, tongues and interpretations of tongues, and prophecy as predicting the future, and apostleship. I'm of the opinion [with some other people much smarter than I] that these represent gifts that were given to the early church to authenticate its authority but are no longer active per se as spiritual gifts. Yes, God still heals and yes, he can still do tongues; however I question how these are used today versus how they were used by the early church.)

At least one place I found online also included music and writing (two which I actually think I do have). It was interesting because that was not something that is found up in the above list (well, maybe writing as teaching, perhaps), but certainly music is something which the church has benefited from throughout its history (if you've ever had bad music, you'll understand!). The references they made to music being an spiritual gift were in the Old Testament (which I think you could pull some other ones out of as well).

(Here is where I took the test. I make no claims for accuracy or veracity; however, it was a useful tool to start my thinking processes.)

So let's assume that music and writing are 1) legitimate spiritual gifts; and 2) I actually have them. Then the question becomes "How am I using them to build up the body of Christ?"

Music is easy - at least, it was. Moving has certainly changed that dynamic temporarily. I need to get re involved - in some fashion with music.

Writing is harder. Hard, you say? Yes, not so much because I don't like to write, but because I want writing to do something for me, rather than my first impulse to be something to build up the body. In my heart of hearts, I want writing to support me, to glorify me, to demonstrate my wit and erudition - and oh yes, of course to glorify God.

This, it seems to me, is the difficulty of spiritual gifts: when we become so enamored of us because of the gift rather than being enamored of the Giver who gave us the gift and blown away that we would be of any use at all. When I start saying that I am a writer blessed of God (the same as you will hear individuals claim they are a "Prophet of God" or a "Healer of God" and expect you to treat them accordingly), then I have stepped away from the exercise of the gift to build up the body and am confiscating the use of the gift for my own ends. God says He will give spiritual gifts (we all have at least one!) and that we are to exercise them; He makes no guarantee that we will be recognized or rewarded for them this side of Heaven.

What's your spiritual gift? Are you using it? How often?

Failure Day IV Questions

As I mulled around my earlier entry (maybe go down and read that first), I started to come up with a list of questions, the kind of questions I typically ask of my temporal goals along with the dreaded application, measurement, and follow up. Here are a few that I came up with:

- What are your spiritual gifts? Are you using them?
- How do you glorify God every day?
- What do tithe? Why that amount? Was it a choice or an accident?
- What is your family’s mission in the church and the world?
- What is each family member’s relationship with Christ?
- How much time do you read the Bible and pray? Is it commensurate with the time you spend in non-eternal affairs?
- How much time does your family read the Bible and pray? Is it commensurate with the time they spend in non-eternal affairs?
- Are you praying with your husband/wife?
- What do you want your marriage to achieve for God?
- What do you want your activities and demeanor to say about how you view God and how you glorify Him?
- Is the way you present yourself – what you do, what you say, how your dress, how you act –giving glory to God or to you?
- How much Scripture have you memorized? How often?
- Is the focus of your time, talents and treasures on you, or God?
- How are you actively rooting our sin in your life? What progress have you made? What specific steps will you take?
- In all of this how can – and will – you monitor and mark your progress?

Failure Day IV

Today is Failure Day. For those who may not have been here before, it commemorates the day in 2005 in which The Firm was dissolved and I laid myself off. The great experiment was over. Much like Anzac Day in Australia, I use this day both as a reminder of something tried as well as a day of self assessment.

So what is the assessment this year?

I'm not sure how to answer that question.

The past year (from last Failure Day) has been quite a series of changes. I moved from one employer to another, then to unemployment for four months, then to a new employer in a different state. An easier way for me to think of it is that I was only employed 8 out of the last 12 months.

Financially, things are a mess (given this economy, I'm sure this is a surprise to precisely no-one). The reality is if you remove the paper money increase from our house, we are at approximately the same level as we were 9 years ago. Yikes. That was not a figure I enjoyed looking at when I saw it.

But in looking at it, the idea suddenly burst into my head "But is that the right goal?"

I looked at the presentation I was working on (for myself, mostly - I find that I think very well using a PowerPoint setup). It was about money. Mostly about money anyway, with some "goal" setting put in as well.

The remarkable thing was, it was all about the here and now, and very little about eternity.

The Pastor of the Church here in New Home said an interesting thought this morning, one that I have been chewing on all day: "The church in America stopped growing when it started going to church and stopped being the church" - in other words, when church, when Christianity, became something that we do rather than something we are, it becomes lifeless.

As I looked at my goals, my finances, my "things I'd like to do", it suddenly struck me how absent God was from most of them.

Oh sure, there were the usual tips of the hat: Pray 15 minutes a day, continue in personal Bible study, try a family Bible study, be involved in church. But the more focused ones, the more developed ones, were all things in which God possibly could be present, but not as the singular focus of the activity.

Damning indeed. Has church become something I've done, and not something I am? Certainly, this is one of the calls of Francis Schaeffer, who I've been reading over the last 2 months. He constantly stressed the need for purity/holiness and love, the Christian being the example (flawed, to be sure) of these two realities of the nature of God, as the witness both to the world and to Christians.

This is not the day of reflection I was expecting.

Offenses and Justification

"It (justification by faith) shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification." - Romans 4: 24b-25

This was another one of those moments reading the Scripture this morning that made me stop - the kind of moment that makes you wonder "How did I miss this - has this always been here?"

The part that grabbed me was not the first part - justification by faith alone in Christ alone, although you would think that would be enough to blow my mind. No, it was the second part "delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification" that literally had me stop and hold my breath.

"delivered up because of our offenses" - that sure doesn't make me sound like anything, does it? Christ was delivered up to be mocked, scorned, beaten, and crucified - because of my offenses. He was given in place of me. My offenses - the ones that I so often just sort of don't think of as being so serious? Oh, those offenses.

"raised because of my justification" - Christ was raised by the Father for me, for my justification. If there was no one else in the world, it would just be only me. God exercised His power to raise His son, who died for me, so that He could justify me, pay the price of my sin, so that I could live eternally with Him.

Does this stun me as it should? Does this create a sense of awe in me? Do I truly reflect on the heinous nature of my sins, the sins that Christ had to die for? Do I seek to completely destroy them in my life, or do I see them as not so serious, not so damaging?

For the price Christ paid, why do I cling so stubbornly to them and am willing to live so flippantly with them?

Timing

In the course of the last nine days, I have received ten contacts concerning potential job offers. Ironically, 6 of them were in Old Home.

On one hand, I have to shake my head (and fist). "Where were you people 3 month ago?" I wonder in my head. "Things would have been a lot less stressful - at least, we wouldn't have to completely disrupt our lives so much - what gives, God?"

On the other hand, as Otis so ably pointed out to me this week on the phone, "Well, it's pretty obvious God wants you in New Home.

"Huh?" that little part of my mind goes that always questions these kind of things. "In New Home? Away from family, friends, a good school, a good church, my bees - good heavens, my life essentially?"

It is interesting to me that I am great believer in the sovereignty of God - but when that sovereignty suddenly does not go quite the way I was expecting, I immediately question God. "What are thinking?" I mutter to myself as I drive to work. "I thought I was doing everything like I was supposed to be. Tearing our lives up at the roots - did I not do something right?"

Then I have to remind myself that: 1) Just because you are doing the right thing doesn't keep you from being moved by God; and 2) Sometimes you do what you are told to do - until new instructions are given. Then you follow the new instructions.

And this does not account for the things that will happen here - that wretched part about not being clairvoyant about the future. I don't know what they will be -but I do know the God that will allow them from his beneficent hand.

And if you're where God wants you, in the center of His will, isn't that really what matters - not the where of your location?

Battle

I am re-reading both Randy Alcorn's Lord Foulgrin's Letters and Francis Schaeffer's The Great Evangelical Crisis. It is a potent combination, one that reminds me I should probably read works in tandem because the sum of the total is greater than the parts.

What the two remind me of is how easy it is for myself to get sidetracked in the realities of life.

In reality, the great drama playing out in the world is not freedom versus oppression, right versus wrong, or even justice versus injustice (although these are all very important). The great drama of the world - in fact, of the universe - is the one running through the soul of every human being currently alive: will it be Heaven - or Hell?

The physical reality we see is not the total reality - we live in a universe inhabited by spiritual beings that are engaged in a titanic struggle not over the control of this universe or even the control of this world - the first has already been decided, and the second will be someday - but over the souls of men and women, souls of people we interact with, love, insult, mock, care for, treat as idols of worship or as objects of use, everyday.

And the stakes of the battle could not be higher. Again, it's not for control of this or any other universe - that's decided. Instead, it is for the eternal destiny of each currently living human. The eternal destiny. Forever. With God or in Hell.

If I can stop and grasp that -indeed, if I can get even a glimpse of that-that changes how I look both at the world in general and my world in particular. Suddenly what happens becomes less important than how I react to it. How I react to people and show them Christ through me becomes less important than how I get my way with them. What I give in service to God, to the cause of salvation, becomes less important than what I get and keep.

In Don't Waste Your Life John Piper compares the difference of a peacetime and wartime mentality through a display on the Queen Elizabeth where a dining room is divided in half, one half with the settings as it would have appeared in peacetime, the other when she served as a troop transport. On one hand, there are linen tablecloths, 12 course settings, and fine crystal and china; on the other , metal trays and bare tables. Everything was stripped down because there was a war on, and the purpose of the ship was different.

The reality is, that is true today. I don't just say "for the Christian" because in reality we are all impacted by this, Christian and non-Christian alike, even though all do not see it. The battle rages around us daily, hourly - as one author said, "As you read Ephesians 6:10-18, you can almost hear the smoke and fire, the clash of arms".

As K.P. Yohannan says in Revolution in World Missions every minute thousands of people die (life being 100% fatal). How many of those have never heard the Gospel, never seen the Gospel as lived out?

There is a battle on. As a Christian, am I engaged - or do I blithely wander through life, thinking the whole purpose of creation and Christ's sacrifice is purely to make my life more pleasant, with Heaven thrown in besides?

Thought

"But something has happened in the last sixty years. The freedom that once was founded on a biblical consensus and a Christian ethos has now become autonomous freedom, cut loose from all constraints. Here we have the world spirit of our age -autonomous Man setting himself up as God, in defiance of the knowledge and the moral and spiritual truth which God has given. Here is the reason we have a moral breakdown in every area of life. The titanic freedoms we once enjoyed have been cut loose from their Christian restraints and are becoming a force of destruction leading to chaos. And when this happens, there really are few alternatives. All morality becomes relative, law becomes arbitrary, and society moves towards disintegration. In personal and social life, compassion is swallowed up by self interest. As I have pointed out in my earlier books, when the memory of the Christian consensus which gave us freedom within the biblical form is increasingly forgotten, a manipulating authoritarianism will tend to fill the vacuum. At this point the words 'right' and 'left' will make little difference. They are only two roads to the same end; the results are the same. An elite, an authoritarianism as such, will gradually force form on society so that it will not go into chaos - and most people would accept it."
- Dr. Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster (1984)

To Each/From Each

A subtle distinction struck me this week as I was reading through the story of the servants and the talents in Matthew 25.

In Matthew 25:15 it states "And to one he (the master) gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his ability, and immediately he went out on his journey."

"To each according to his ability." Hmm. A variation of this phrase may sound familiar. It's from Marx: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

As I pondered this, I was struck by the fundamental difference between God and man. God, the giver, grants us according to our ability, not removing things from us based on our ability. But God also expects us not to spend them on ourselves but to use it for His work and His glory (read the rest of the parable [Matthew 25:14-30, James 4: 1-3]).

The natural man, by comparison, is a taker. He (we) takes what he wants (tangible and intangible) to slake his own purposes and lusts. This should not come as a surprise - the Father of Lies started this trend by desiring to be like the Most High, not from any sense of glorifying God but from the sense of ruling and gratifying his own sense of pride.

Now here's the irony: The world has so reversed the two ideas that the world system (cosmos) is seen as a giver and God is seen as a taker.

Why? The world has come to interpret giving as only that which brings pleasure, power, or glory to self. Giving in this sense becomes no more than gratification dressed up in finer clothes. And God, the giver of all things, becomes a taker in this cosmos economy because He does not call for self gratification but self denial and service, of glorifying God and serving others through the gifts which He has given.

The second irony is that in fact God is the final giver. As with the Master in Matthew 25, when God returns He will judge how well we used what He gave us - so the the self denial and service are turned into rewards, while the self gratification for ourselves becomes the true "taken away."

Self denial for rewards. Service for glory. We accept that hard work and deferred rewards works here on earth, but fail too often (as Christians anyway) to fully grasp how the principle also works in the heavenly economy. If we truly acted this way, if we truly thought and believed this way, if we vigorously developed and debated the idea this way - could we change the perceptions?

My hopes are not high -but at least we could give evidence to a God who gives freely, loves much and is worthy of our praise. That cannot be a bad thing.

Storm

Water falls on self,
As a pool gathers the warm
summer's offering.

Rain is warm, not cold;
While clouds look same as before:
Change of (l)attitude.

Hanging with Francis

I am taking part of my sojourn here at New Home to re-read some items which I have read before but need a bit more time to mentally roll over in my mind (I've got nothing but time right now). Currently, I am in the process of re-reading Francis Schaeffer.

I've read Escape from Reason, A Christian Manifesto, and True Spirituality, am working my way through The God Who Is There, and have The Coming Evangelical Disaster (with The Mark of a Christian) to go (and that is scarcely all that the man wrote). In reading his work, one cannot help but take notice of the fact of the sweep of his knowledge base (philosophy, theology, the arts) and his ability to follow the flow through history.

His level of intellectualism and methodical reasoning also give me pause, because he represents a line of though which has become increasingly absent from the church, and it's ability to interact with the world. Not just the church though; it's the world as well.

We've lost the ability to think, to look hard at an issue and ponder its application. It is difficult to fathom that within 2-3 generations we lost this ability; we are, as someone so eloquently put it, "entertaining ourselves to death". The world has by and large lost the ability to honestly deal with the nature of truth, having drowned it out in a flood of shallow entertainment and adherence to idealistic nihilism that proclaims "I am correct no matter what" conveniently ignoring the implications and ends of their thought patterns and beliefs; the church has lost the ability to honestly deal with the world by retreating into an faith without intellect and proclamation without engagement.

The world I cannot directly help, as it has little interest at the moment in correcting itself. The church, as the body of Christ, I am commanded to help, or at least try to: the question is, does it have the same interest in being helped?

Is Today the Day?

How often do I think about my death?

That was the question of the sermon yesterday morning, preaching on 1st Corinthians 15: 35-58. The pastor raised the point that we do not ask two questions of ourselves daily that the early church asked:

1) Will I die today?
2) Will Christ come today?

The key to wasting your life, he stated, is to live like you have tomorrow.

That strikes me as funny, because so much of modern American life - of my own life- is built on the idea that we do have tomorrow. Plan for advancement, plan for retirement, plan for the weekend - always something is set off for tomorrow, which by default we assume we have. Not to be given as a gift, but to have as a divine right.

Not that there is anything wrong with planning. But planning presumes that tomorrow will be there. And tomorrow may never come. We make our plans and so often fail acknowledge the sovereignty of God in our lives and the universe:

"Come now, you who say 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit'; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or than.' But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil." - James 4: 13-16

If I believed tomorrow would not come - if I knew that tomorrow would not come how would that change today?

If I knew that I would not wake up after I put my head down on my pillow tonight, how would I pray differently? Serve differently?

What am I clutching to my chest as mine that I would release if I knew I would never use it again?

And now that I ask myself all of these questions, what am I going to do about it?

What are you going to do about it?

Vie Rides Again!

My friend Vie and his new band have a new CD: Red Letter Read.

You should go to their website: http://www.redletterread.com/

The CD is officially released tomorrow. I'm not sure when it will be for sale, but if like Christian Rock Praise music, you should buy a copy.

On second thought, buy two: one for you and one for someone else.

A Buttercup Moment

I Corinthians 15:35-45

"Death used to be an executioner, but the gospel has made him just a gardener" - George Herbert, Welsh poet and priet (1593-1633)

The Audience of One

"The point is, we can't hide anything from Him and it's silly to try. I don't know if He cares about all the details, like what kind of toothpaste we use, but He certainly cares about spiritual growth and moral issues. If we're doing something right, it doesn't matter if other people disapproved. All that matters is what He thinks. If we're doing something wrong, it doesn't matter if no one else knows, God does. He sees us as we are. He knows everything we're thinking, everything we're doing. I heard someone put it this way: God is the Audience of One. There are no secrets from Him. He's our judge, and His opinion is the only one that ultimately matters." - Ryan Lawrence, Lord Foulgrin's Letters (Randy Alcorn)

How much do I grasp that I am continually before the Audience of One? How often have, in the dark of night or the dark of my own mind, conceived things that are sin, flirted with temptations instead of roundly casting them aside - nay, encouraged them, rolling them around in my mind like a fine piece of dark chocolate in my mouth, savoring the flavor? In all of these times, even as I appear unchanged on the outside, do I understand that I am wide open to God?

Or on the other side - how often do I seek to do things because they will accrue the praises of men rather than the praise of God? How often have I turned aside from the thing I should do because no-one would know, there would be no recognition? How often have I reluctantly served, harboring thoughts of resentment that I was not praised rather than thoughts of rejoicing that I was privileged to serve?

How often do I truly think of the Audience of One? How real is He to me?

A Visit With Failure

I was sitting at my computer when Failure came by unannounced and unexpected. I had not intended or planned to see anyone that night: my roommates, young and college age, where out having a night life while I, married and frugal, was spending the evening in the apartment reading and getting ready to write.

I caught a glimpse of blue-while out of the corner of my eye as I heard the creak of the corner of the mattress being sat down on. As I had not expected any visitors, I felt little need to turn and acknowledge her presence.

"You're trying it again, aren't you?" came the voice as the rustling sounds suggested hair being pushed behind ears and shoulders. "It's really hot here. Did we have to do this now?"

"If you don't like it, leave. If you're hot, sit under the fan" I retorted, not dignifying the comment with eye contact.

A soft thwap and the rustling of papers on my desk suggested that a fan had been brought out and was being used. "It's not a question of like, you understand" she purred, banishing annoyance from her tone in an attempted exchange for results. "It 's just that it's my duty to remind you of things you can't do and you're not good at."

I spun around at that and saw the blue-white yukata covered shape hop over on the mattress, afraid I'd take more action that just whirling. The fan had stopped in mid-move; when it was apparent I'd do no more than just glare, it started up again.

Failure pouted. "We always go through this: for a while you're sensible, then you decide you "want" to do something, and then we come back to this. You think you can, but you really can't. Remind me: your writing, it's so good you've managed to complete how many manuscripts?" Her smile was as insincere as her tone, the long sleeve of the yukata trailing the movement of the fan.

I snorted in response. "Doesn't matter how much I haven't done, I only need to keep trying. Dedication, you know. New place, new life, new time. Now off with you." I pointed at the door.

The low sound of her laugh beat a countertempo to the fanning. "Quite brave now, aren't we? Reading always makes this way. It's cute."

Again I pointed. "Off. I've enough of you. Maybe I'll never get beyond the basics, maybe I'll never be good, maybe I'll never be published. But none of that is a reason to accept you. If I fail, I fail - but not because I stopped trying."

The bed creaked as she got up, still fanning herself. "I'll be off then - but I'm pretty sure not for long. Maybe I'll be back for the cool season here." She strolled out of the room, giving the impression that she was leaving of her own accord, not being asked to.

I turned, barely hearing the door shut as I got back to the computer. Note to self: lock the doors of the room and of my mind before I start this next time.

Planning

We're starting to enter the home stretch of the relocation: Home lease - check; home sale ongoing - check; moving date set - check; kid's school - check; new church - ongoing.

It's the last little details that are starting to come up that are of themselves minor, but are seeming to bother me: bank, reliable mechanic, exactly what way am I going to get to work, where's the best place to shop based on where we are, a new church (again) - those things that in some ways I need to have an idea about before everyone else gets here.

I say last little, but they seem not to be little in my mind - I guess because I want to make the right choice the first time instead of making choices which are not as good and/or convenient. Because I've made those choices before, only to find out that once we were in a place, they really weren't the best or most convenient choices.

Planning. So much of life is about planning, thinking ahead instead of just reacting as things come into place. I look back now, especially now that I am working with individuals 10-15 years younger than I am, and I suddenly realize all the time and effort that I have wasted. It's a sad thing - you see individuals whose lives in their mid-twenties still revolve around X-Box or Wii and you want to scream "Do you realize how precious your time in life is? Why are you wasting it on things that are of no value?" to which they nod, smile at you in that sort of "Oh-You're-an-old-person" way and continue on with what their doing.

Planning. Efficiency. The older you get, the more you realize there is less and less time to waste.

A Whack on the Side of the Head

I got an electronic invite yesterday from my friend Vie, who said "The CDs are on my front porch; where's my book?"

Yikes.

Vie, my musician friend, already has one CD that I enjoy immensely and has been working on a second one for some time. Almost every week in the spring, I was faithfully bothering him about it, to which he replied "Where's the book?" I would laugh, say I was working on it, and we would carry on.

But now he reminds me of it, even as the thought floated through my head this morning as I ran. He finished his project; what about mine?

Why have I given up right now? I could come up with a variety of excuses, but they would simply be that - only excuses. Like all other things, to read of the struggles that some of the great authors went though to get published (and this before the advent of electronic media) is both humbling and indicative of my laziness - because let's call it what it is.

I have books on writing with me in New Home. I have time. Every excuse I come up with - I can't write well for a sustained period of time, I'm boring, I can't characterize - just seems to expose me more and more. What do I really want?

"Crossing at a Ford

'Crossing at a ford' means, for example, crossing the sea at a strait, or crossing over a hundred miles of broad sea at a crossing place. I believe this 'crossing at a ford' occurs often in a man's lifetime. It means setting sail even though your friends stay in harbour, knowing the route, knowing the soundness of your ship and the favour of the day. When all the conditions are meet, and there is perhaps a favourable wind, or a tailwind, then set sail. If the wind changes within a few miles of your destination, you must row across the remaining distance without sail.

If you attain this spirit, it applies to everyday life. You must always think of crossing at a ford."

- Shinmen Musashi no Kami Fujiwara No Genshin (Miyamoto no Musashi), A Book of Five Rings

Who Am I?

I am struggling to not be myself in my new location and position - as if I know who "myself'" really is.

Long ago, I had a manager whom I revered as a role model comment to me one day on the job "You know Terry, I'm not really one to speak about conforming to normal behavior" (and he was not), "but it occurs to me that management will find it hard to promote a guy to more responsible positions if they see him jumping up and down and waving to folks inside the manufacturing facility." And so I took what he said to heart -or at least as much as I could to heart. I tried to double down, read the usual "how to be successful" books, try tame my behavior into some more acceptable outlets - and to be fair, it does seem to have served me well in certain aspects.

At the same time, I realized tonight, walking around the block in the 8:00 PM 93 degree heat, that this was not just a piece of advice that I was carrying around: it was a strait jacket I bound on myself.

Who am I? Who do I want to be? What am I capable of being? I'm certainly not traditional leadership or senior management material (so say the books) - but look at all the people who are now not "typical" leadership material. I was not deemed acceptable for the pastorate - but there is more than one way to be a light for God. I was not cut out for real estate - but you cannot be successful at someone else's dream, only your own.

Who am I? Whose ideas about me have I continued to carry around? Who am I trying to satisfy? And who should I try to be satisfying, except God?

Seeing Clearly

I'm in the throes of a decision that needs to be made by the end of the day, something I had not planned on having to do: paying my mortgage this month.

My hope was, as we were in the process of relocating and selling, I could get by without this being an issue because the sale would be underway. Instead, I find myself in the position of having to choose to pay with money we could use elsewhere for home deposit at New Home and living expenses or not paying and using the money for a house deposit and living expenses at the potential cost of immediate credit rating and progression of the short sale.

I've received council of belove friends - Uisdean Ruah, Bogha Frois - and The Ravishing Mrs. TB. I've pondered and pondered - if I contact the bank, it will have to be today.

The comment, brought up by Uisdean Ruadh, is the one that continues to plow through my head: the hardship laws are there for a reason, and the reality is, you are at that reason.

Which is remarkable to me, because I don't feel that I am - or I don't choose to feel that I am. But is that me simply denying the reality of where we are? I don't' have to deal with the day to day issues of managing our money as The Ravishing Mrs. TB does.

Am I seeing our situation clearly? Am I seeing myself clearly? Am I looking for an excuse to avoid doing something, or am I being prideful to keep from humbling myself to reality?

Why Do We Do The Things We Do?

Why do we engage in anything - thoughts, behaviours, actions - which are contrary to our own best interest?

Yes, I know I could take the relatively easy way out and say "sin" - and while on one level that would be true, on another level that is just a convenient excuse for the saved Christian. Of course we sin. Of course we have a sin nature which we are (hopefully) dealing with the through the Spirit and the process of sanctification.

But that still doesn't get away from the area of choice, which is where I am this morning. Why do we - goodness, why do I -choose thoughts, behaviours, and actions which are contrary to my own best interest?

It's either one of two things: 1) Making the bad choices meets some kind of need within me even though I don't or can't acknowledge it; or 2) I am making choices based on a script that no longer is appropriate for my life.

1) Making bad choices meets some kind of need within me even though I don't or can't acknowledge it - Interesting, but in some ways this gets me back to sin. Certainly there is a sense in which doing something feels better than choosing nothing. A need to act decisively - or a sense from others that I need to act decisively?

2) Making choices based on a script that is no longer appropriate in my life - Less self awareness here but probably more accurate. It goes along with my truth theme of a few days ago. I make choices based on things that used to be true but maybe are not so much now. I cling to them because the exercise of realizing, acknowledging, and casting them off in favour of other decisions is more than I feel like I am intellectually capable of (i.e. I'm lazy).

In Man of La Mancha, Aldonza sings a song to Don Quixote titled "What You Want From Me?". As part of the song she asks:

"Why does he do the things he does?
Why does he do these things?
Why does he march
Through the dream that he's in,
Covered in glory and rusty old tin?
Why does live in a world that can't be,
And what does he want of me...
What does he want of me?"

For Don Quixote, he does these things because of his world view, a world view that in theory no-one else sees but in fact is more noble than any of the other characters - seeing life as he would have it, not as it is. In his case, realization is brought to him of the difference - but the others try to bring him down to their level of crassness and reality, instead of elevating to his. In Don Quixote's case, his choices were ones which ennobled those around him.

Mine are not nearly so good.

How do I get off the intellectually lazy bus on a regular basis? How do I make choices based on what is now - or even on what I aspire to and wish to be - rather than what is or what has been?

The Man We Fain Would Be

"Every man as he grows into life, finds he must employ such an ecomony on his own account. He is pressed to occupy positions or to engage in work which prevent him from achieving the purpose for which nature has fitted him. He is offered promotion which seems attractive and has its advantages; but he declines it, because it would divert him from his chosen aim. Continually, men spoil their life by want of concentration. They are greatly tempted to do so, for the public foolishly concludes that, because a man does one thing well, he can do everything well, and he who has written a good history is straightway asked to sit in Parliament, or the man whose scholarship and piety have been conspicuous is offered preferment which calls for the exercise of wholly different qualities...

Yes, it is good for the builder to bury the banker that he might have been. It is good for Paul to bury the Saul that he had been. But here is one man within us, whom we are most strongly tempted to bury, to whose funeral we must never, never, go. He is the man of our ideal; the man our prayers; the man we fain would be." - Dr. Marcus Dods as quoted by Frank Boreham, The Luggage of Life.

Truth

"Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed in Him, 'If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.'" - John 8:21-32

"Jesus answered, 'You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.' Pilate said to Him, 'What is truth'?" - John 18: 37b - 38a

"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." - Francisco d'Anconia, Atlas Shrugged


"Deal with the truth as you find it, not the truth as you wish to find it." - Toirdhealbheach Beucail

What is truth? This thought popped into my head as I was wading my way through Atlas Shrugged - but also has been a theme as I have made sojourn here in New Home, in many many ways a sort of mini-remote island experience cut off from friends, family, church, and most activities that I did as well as a great deal of news. It has been a time where for a great deal, I have had books, thoughts, and the Internet to ponder.

How do we use truth? What do we base our life on? Do we even bother to search it out anymore, or do we merely accept what we are given at face value? Or just settle into our own version of what we believe the truth is?

The English word "truth", for those that were wondering, is not actually derived from Greek or Latin but rather comes from the Old English "treowth" which means "fidelity". Which is actually not a bad definition at all: when were are truthful, we are faith (showing fidelity) to the thing or facts as they are.

Truth is a sort of dirty word in much of today's culture, both modern and philosophical - and the idea of a "True Truth" (as Francis Shaeffer would say) even more under attack. Most here are probably familiar with the concept of "It's true for you, but not for me." Truth, in so many ways, is seen by this time and space as something which is subjectively true rather than objectively true.

The difficulty with that thinking is simply that it is never faithful to the end. Inevitably, false versions of the truth stop short of the full implications of the truth - and individuals refuse to embrace the totality of the truth and where facts lead but stop at their "version" of the truth. And if one cannot be faithful to the full truth, one is simply not truthful, embracing false versions of truth.

God is a God of Truth. He calls His people to be those of truth - not only about Him, but I would also submit about everything. Christians should above all others be people of ruthless honesty (but not ruthless about how we present it), a people who are committed to seeing things as they really are and not shunning away from the uncomfortable parts or wishing that there was truth other than that which they find.

Are we truthful with God? (Probably seldom as much as we should be) Are we truthful with ourselves? (Usually only when it is of benefit to us). Are we truthful with our spouse? (Insert your own answer here) With our children? With our friends? With our community? With those in the church and out of it? With the nations?

The world is awash in half truths, false truths, bad truths, and untruths. We substitute everything else for truth because we can't find truth around us.

Let the Church, at least, be a place of truth for a world controlled by the Prince of Lies.

And let it start with me.

Atlas Shrugged

I finished rereading Atlas Shrugged this weekend. I forgot what a really good book it is - it is one of the books I can honestly say that the more I read it, the more I see in it. It's remarkable how a really good, intellectually engaging book reminds one of how much less so much that passes for literature truly is.

Rand's philosophy, Objectivism - that everything should have an objective reason purpose behind each act (the Toirdhealbheach Beucail short statement) - is not for all, and her atheism is somewhat disturbing considering she saw the effects of an atheistic government in her youth in the form of Soviet Russia. Still, for an approximately 1070 page novel the story moves, the characters are memorable, and the plot is engaging.

Rand is not shy about her characters: her heroes and heroines are bold and heroic, the villains weak and unattractive. But the thing that surprise me the most this time as opposed to the first time is how truly motivating her heroes are. To read of John Galt or Hank Rearden or Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia or Dagny Taggart is to walk inspired literally to excel to the best of one's ability - that in fact one should do one's best, should live to a higher standard, should simply be to the utmost capacity that one has to exist - these are the things that inspire me long after I put the book down, or call me to go back to it after I have moved into other things.

The question is, how does one put that inspiration into daily practice?

Holiday

Today being July 3rd is the first official holiday/day off that I've had since being laid off.

Days off are one of the luxuries that only the employed can truly understand. I remember when Memorial Day was coming around this year being surprised by the fact it was here so soon and the lack of impact it had on me. When the approach was pointed out by me, my reaction was similar to "Oh - for me it's just another day not working."

But now I'm on the other side.

And what a strange other side it is. I cannot remember a situation where I had a three day weekend off without The Ravishing Mrs. TB or Na Clann or even my greater family around - 17, 18 years? One is confronted in a small way with the problem of the workaholic: what am I to do today?

Catch up mostly: a little cleaning, a little laundry, actually waking up and trotting off to work quickly, reading without a sense of having to finish to do something else, and most of all getting ready to go see some old friends I've not seen in 4 years.

Do we work to treasure the times we don't work all the more?

Look Who's Coming to Dinner

So as a special treat last night, I got to have dinner with Otis. He had some business to conduct not far from here and so made the drive up last night to visit me in New Home. We engaged in one of the modes of food (BBQ) that New Home is known for, and chatted the evening away.

It provokes a moment of reflection for me. I've known Otis something like 8 years now, when I first met him through the church we were both attending at the time and he was having a men's study in his home. It makes me reflect because you never know where friendships are going to blossom - I cannot think of anything directly that would make the think that the friendship I have with him is what it is today. It was an easing in, rather than a sudden realization of "Hey, this is someone that I can build a real relationship with, and have it grow even stronger even though we are states away from each other."

This is in contrast to those friendships where you try to make them happen because of some reason - the person is significant in some way that is meaningful to you, you seem to share a common interest, or there is something about the person that makes you want to be associated with them. So often, those do not end up working because they are built on some goal to the relationship rather than the relationship itself.

It's actually a lot like dating and marriage - we date those who we think have something that is attractive to us be it looks, money, or interests, but those marriages that last end up being built on the relationship with our spouse, rather than the things that the relationship has or can offer of itself - because all too often, those things can go away and all you are left with is the relationship. Woe betide the weak relationship built only on things.

And actually (if you carry it that far) it's like our relationship with God: so often we desire God for what He can do for us, rather than the relationship that we can have with Him. And so often, people fall away from God because the things suddenly do not appear (the great and dangerous Achilles heel of the "Health and Wealth" gospel) and interpret that as God not loving them rather than realizing that God loves us through those situations and that it is our relationship with Him is paramount, not what we get from Him.

Powerful stuff indeed. I should have Otis out for dinner more often.