Friendship is Where You Find It

The bulk of my friends in the years since I graduated from high school have been friends I found at work.

This is a stunning thought to me - stunning because the line of work I am in is not something that I would have ever really chosen, let alone thought about going into in school. I would have thought I would have ended up in something like I studied, dealing with people who dealt in thought and concepts and interests as I did.

Instead, I have found my friends to be in this industry I did not anticipate and so often feel out to sea in. Perhaps it is the fact that one spends so much time with one's coworkers that some relationship is predetemined. Perhaps it is because of the fact that in my industry I deal with intelligent, quirky individuals which appeal to me. Perhaps it is simply that this is where dregs of humanity congregate (of which I am one). But never the less, this is where I have found them.

One wonders if perhaps (in one of those pre-ordained acts God seems to spring on us) the whole reason God allowed me to be here in this industry, wandering from place to place (and indeed from Old Home to New Home)was the fact that He knew that this is where I'd find the people I needed to find to make it through my life. Another reminder, I suppose, of how much God knows about what He is doing - and how little we do, and how often I get these two concepts reversed.

Cold Front

Early morning run:

I wish the wind would drive me

as overhead clouds.

Success

Sometimes letting go of our successes can be as difficult and freeing as letting go of our failures.

Successes can be tricky things. On the one hand, we want to succeed. Success feed our self confidence. Successes give us the sense of accomplishing things. Success is a measurable metric of our achievement.

But successes can also bind us.

Success in one area breeds more success in the same area, which can draw us down one path, excluding others. And even if we go down another path for other success, the second success can mislead us: in one circumstance, we close a million dollar deal; in the other, the cheese I made is edible. On the surface, one is wildly great and other is okay (or at least edible).

But what if the million dollar deal locks you into something that 10 years from now you'll hate? And what if the lopsided cheese you made today, if followed, could lead to a career in gourmet cheeses?

Success is not - and cannot be - the only indicator about what the purpose and direction of our life should be. Without intending to, it can in the end blind us to other options and possibilities and directions about where our true successes might be found.

Quality and Lures

I understand now the lure of producing things other than for yourself, the drive of making a little more money.

It starts innocently enough: you start making something for yourself, and you find you're successful at it. The next thing you know, you are starting to make it (or other things just like it) for others.

Life is good. Money is rolling in, things are growing, life is splendid.

But then something happens. A problem emerges. If something is done, it will interrupt the cash flow, be embarrassing. The pressure - if not from you, then from those around you - is to figure out a way to justify things. After all, it's not a serious problem, or it doesn't rise to the level of a real problem, or it you can find ways to verify the problem doesn't impact anything. And besides, the people you're making it for will never really know.

Before you are aware, you've gone farther down this road than you intended. Another problem comes up, and then another. Always though the pressure is to make things work, to figure out a way around or through. After all, it will create issues for income.

To some extent one could say (with some justification) that this mentality is just another fallout of the industrial age. In the pre-industrial age one often made things for one's friends and neighbors, and if the product wasn't good, they'd surely be around to tell you about it. But now there are multiple layers between manufacturer and the customer. Any issues will more than likely never be brought to light -and if they do, your customers do they same to you (undoubtedly), so it's really just status quo.

But in an age that argues for quality, that has individuals and societies that are organized around quality, that suffers from a lack of quality, isn't it a bit remarkable that we are now attempting to enforce something that used to be internalized but is now imposed from outside?

Not everyone is a victim of this, of course: there are corporations that practice high quality and individuals that don't practice it at all.

But the lure of money is a powerful one, whether imposed on ourselves or from individuals outside of us. It is often left to us to navigate the rapids with what we have, hoping against hope that the river will slow down and we can get ourselves to the shore.

Thugs

I hate thugs.

I struggled through this concept yesterday, as I sat in a meeting where the self-appointed guardians of projects started pushing their own opinions and time lines down the throats of others - not for any reason or law, but simply because they believe that it should be so.

As I sat there afterwards, stewing in my resentment and anger, I realized: I hate thugs.

We typically think of thugs as low brow, heavy-handed types with no necks who use force to get what they want or enforce their own wills. But this is something we tend to associate with "undesirable elements" rather than with our own lives. This is a mistake, one that allows such people to get away with their will.

Growing up, I was the victim of thuggery twice: both times, as I recall, in fourth or fifth grade. In one instance it was a group of kids in my neighborhood; in another, it was at school. What I remember from both (other than the discovery that I could not defend myself) is the feeling of powerlessness I had in the situation, even more than fear. I was not the biggest child growing up, nor was I the most athletic, so my choices were turn and flee (or in my case, fling your skateboard, turn and flee) or get rolled (as in picked up and planted into the raised bed of dirt). In both cases, it took an authority figure to deal with the situation.

Looking back in retrospect, I wonder if this was the best thing. While it resolved the problem, what it did is instill in me a belief that I was powerless in such situations and could do nothing myself; I needed someone else to rescue me. I'm not one for fighting per se, but I wonder if defending myself would have taught a different lesson.

Because that lesson, once learned, is hard to escape from.

The reality is that such thugs dwell in all aspects of our lives. They may not use their fists and superior weight, but they do use their power, their intellect, their words and even (still) their physical presence to enforce their wills. And they are no longer simply bigger than we are: they come in all shapes and sizes, using all sorts of intimidation to enforce the dictates of their own wills.

What it leaves us with is a sense of powerlessness, a sense that I can't change anything, that I must accept the dictates of the thug because they will overwhelm me - maybe not physically anymore, but intellectually and spiritually. We become victims of our own fears, driven to hide in the recesses of our terror of being made to feel powerless again, hoping that some other authority will come and rescue us from the thug. We become dependent on others for the defense of ourselves and the initiation of our lives.

How do you fight a thug?

By standing up to them.

It's the only way. The second reality of thugs is they are often so used to getting their way, that they don't always know what to do when someone pushes back (an interesting sideshow, if you ever observe one, is to see a thug getting pressured by a more powerful thug). They often stop and give you the look as if they are in shock that anyone would counteract their decreed will. They sputter. They get red. They get embarrassed. They may lash out at others. They are not used to having their wills confounded.

Don't know how to stand up to them? Know their means of attack. Physical thugs, of course, are simply a matter of learning to defend ourselves. Other thugs are no different. Their methods of attack are standard and can be learned. Do they quote Scripture? Learn more. Do they quote regulations? Learn them better. Do they quote ideologies? Learn the ideologies, and learn the counterarguments.

Is it hard? Sure - who has time to read the Code of Federal Regulations or review Plato's theory of government in their busy lives. But the reality is this: there is something on the other side of our fear of thugs, something that if that fear is removed will be released. I suspect it's different for individuals, and I cannot even fully tell you myself what is on the other side of my own fear. But I can sense it there, needing only to have fear moved aside to be released.

It occurs to me that the day we stand up to the thug is our life we will find that we have far more power than we thought. And if we do it often enough, we will find we are capable of far more than we ever envisioned.

Let that day be today - and every day - in our lives.

Gray

What happens when the visions and dreams we hold get subsumed under an avalanche of reality?

There comes a time - seemingly often in my own life - where all that I wanted to do or intended to do or dreamed of doing gets crushed in the onslaught of the real world. I try and hold on pieces of it, or convince myself that it is only periodic and there a better time coming. But what happens when those, too, get blown away?

I bring to mind those books I have read where individuals pushed through to their dreams through a haze of disappointments and discouragements. I look at them, and then I look at myself, and I wonder "What if"?

But then I am brought down to earth by the life that I actually have, the responsibilities to which I am bound and the commitments which I have made. Suddenly achieving one's dreams seems far away when that achievement is won at any price.

The reality - although I hate to admit it - is that I am not a free agent in my own existence. I cannot do anything that I want to at any time. Instead, what I do is a careful balance of negotiation among the competing interests and responsibilities and individuals in my life.

Sound less motivational, doesn't it? Not "I am the Master of My Fate, I am the Captain of my Soul" but "I am the Negotiator of the Possible, I am the Keeper of Responsibilities". Hardly the thing to sell as a self-motivational title.

Which is back to the crux of my problem. How, in the midst of things as they are, do I find the spark to keep on having something to work towards? How do I find the motivation to believe that something I actually want is possible, rather than accept the seeming fact that all that is possible is responsibilities and commitments?

How do I not lose what is left of my inner core in the reality of a life which seemingly consists only of "musts" and "have-to's"?

Rush

Must run off early,

No time for a blog. I know:

Let's write a haiku!

Reservoirs of Strength

"A thing is going to happen that has not happened since the Elder Days: The Ents are going to wake up, and find that they are strong." - Gandalf the White, The Two Towers

How do we tap our reservoirs of secret strength?

We all have secret strength, those places in our soul that rise to the challenge of our lives. Too often they are buried under layers of everyday living, squelched like a spring under a mound of rock and soil. But, like any spring, it only takes clearing away the debris above it to have the water flow out.

But how do we do it? It's easy to conceptually discuss dirt and water (even kids get that), but how do we discuss it in terms of our lives, where the task of every day overrun even our best attempts to change the smallest thing in our lives?

I've three suggestions:

1) Believe - Without believing that we can - even if we don't know how - we will never make the attempt to try.

2) Commit - We need to commit - fully - to whatever it is we are trying to do. If running, I need to make the commitment that I will run on my days, regardless of how I feel. If writing, I need to make the commitment to write the 1700 words a day.

3) Push - Too often I find that I cannot because I will not. Unless I push myself to the edge of what I think I can do, I don't find out that there is more beyond that. I often think the edge is a cliff, when what really seems to be is a step up or down into a whole new plain.

Without believing, I will never commit - because I cannot commit to a vague idea or something I really don't think I can do. Without committing, I will never have the drive to push myself. And if I don't push myself, I'll never find out what I can really do.

Be an Ent. Wake up, and find that you are strong.

Practicing Prayer Cuts

I am not the best person at prayer.

I don't suppose I've ever really been that good at it - regular, I suppose, but never good. I don't know - I'm just never one of those people for who prayer seems to flow, or whom seems to be able to hold conversations with God. If it's not written down, I forget it; if I don't have a model, I seem to drift into the same five or ten items ever time.

But this morning, in the midst of my Iaido, I had an epiphany.

I was practicing chudon waza from seiza. Kneeling, one faces forward (mae), right (migi), left (hidari) and rearwards (ushiro), and either step out or turns and step as you draw into a suhei giri (straight cut; kneeling puts the cut at kubi (neck). I was practicing downstairs, so I was not able to rise for the rest of the kata lest I take out the glass lamp bulb in the fan. Instead, I practiced rising to my knees, turning and drawing (nukitsuke), then sheathing (noto) and doing it again.

As I continued to repeat the pattern - rise, turn, draw, sheathe - I realized that I was really practicing something no different than how I should practice prayer.

The great secret of Iaido - or of any martial art, I suppose - is not that there are always secret techniques (there's always more that you can learn) but the fact that any person can master them, if only they will practice. That's the secret: repetition. The difference between the master and the student is thousands of hours of practicing the techniques over and over (Malcolm Gladwell in his fabulous book Outliers: The Story of Success puts a number on it: 10,000) , slowly become better, making what must often seem like minuscule adjustments, until at last the techniques become as natural as breathing, the weapon an extension of one's body.

Prayer is no different than this. We think prayer is some great thing that we must instantly become great at to be effective. In fact, prayer is just the same: something the Christian is to practice over and over daily. We may perceive the improvement in our prayers, but one day we will find that praying has become as natural as any other conversation we have.

We are at a disadvantage: we read the great prayers of Moses or David or Nehemiah or Daniel and rate ourselves against them. What we do not realize is that these were not prayers pulled out of nowhere; these were the prayers of men who had spent a great deal of time praying, who had practiced prayer until they could pray with great effectiveness and power.

So when I pray today or tonight or tomorrow I have a new perspective: it's not just that I'm praying and talking to God (which is, of course, of supreme importance), it's that I'm training myself in prayer the way a warrior trains in Iaido: regularly, patiently, incrementally.

Early Autumn Moon

The bright Autumn moon:

does it's light make morning cold

or is it the wind?

Running In Grooves

I pushed myself this morning.

I'm trying to alternate my exercise program between aerobic (running) and weight lifting. Running is always something of a challenge for me - not to do it so much as to get myself to do it. Truth is, I'm lazy and would often rather spend my time thinking about running than actually doing the running.

But out the door I got this morning and headed down the road.

At about the half mile point, the thought floated into my head "We should do three miles today". I was feeling good. My legs didn't hurt and I wasn't too overly warm. Besides, that would be a 5k and that's what I was really working towards.

So off I continued to run. At about the 1.5 mile point, the thought comes back. And immediately gets shot down by the right side of my brain.

"Oh dear Lord, are you serious? Really? We're going to have run two miles anyway. I'm tired. It's probably later than you think, and you still have lots of things to do this morning. Let's just head back - yummy coffee is waiting." Back and forth the conversation went as I rounded the last curve and started up the hill towards the house.

And passed the turnoff by as I went on.

This probably sounds much more dramatic than it actually is. The point - at least the point to myself - is that I pushed myself beyond what I thought I was capable of.

More often than not, I'm less than energetic (that's a pretty way to say lazy). I do the minimum. I'd like to say there are reasons - like lack of acknowledgement, lack of reward - but in point of fact, I just don't like to make myself uncomfortable. I find that groove in my life and want to stick there.

But life is not found in the grooves. Grooves become ruts, muddy trails that stick us in the mire. It's only on the solid ground, the ground between the grooves, that we can make real progress.

However, in order to get out of the groove, it's necessary that we put in some effort, to push ourselves out of the groove. In the end, no one - friends, spouse, parents, children, even coffee (which otherwise can do so much) - can pull us out. We have to do it ourselves.

I made 3.25 miles this morning, beyond a 5K. I felt good when I ended - not great, but certainly better than I expected. Everything - including this post - got done this morning in the allotted time. The coffee was still hot. Life is good - because I pushed myself out of the groove.

And then, the Left Brain muttered, if we could only do 5 miles...

Task List

I have had a total of 1680 tasks to do at work since 25 April 2011.

Originally the Task List started out as an exercise in self preservation for all of us, a tool to demonstrate what we were actually doing and the work load we bore. As things came up, the intent was to grade them as to priority and type, then add them to the list. The hope, as I recall, was to give a tool to others to explain precisely what it was we did and how understaffed we were.

The original purpose of the tool has been cast aside (we got too busy) but I have patiently continued to maintain my own list as a testament to what I am doing and (hopefully) use it to justify my existence at the end of the year.

As I go through the list, what I find is that so many of the tasks on it were listed as "critical" or "Hot-Hot-Hot!" at the time they were initiated. Timelines which were critically dependent on one thing; turnaround times that "made the difference" to the client; things which simply "must be done": all now are little "complete" line items on the list.

The reality? Most of these made little or no difference, and the effort and time put in were swiftly forgotten once the task was completed. People "move on" with staggering rapidity, leaving efforts and time cast aside. In the end, we are as often judged by what people remember about us as much as it is what we have done for them.

Part of my heart cries out as I review the list every week that this is a sad commentary on my life: tasks marked "complete" on a list that, in five years, will probably not matter.

That old disconnect again: the reality of life versus the need to make an impact and difference through my work. How do I reconcile these?

End of the Week

Fighting the end of the week petering out again.

I seem to get here more often than not: that sense of Friday not as "It's the weekend", but a sense of staggering to the finish line once again. There's not sense of victory involved, only a sense of "it's done".

It is times like this that make me feel the burden of am I really moving forward in my life? Day feels like yesterday, month like last month. Things this year do not appear to be much different or changed or improved from things last year, and the future seemingly holds no different options.

I wonder if part of this is simply the reality of life. Before I had the ability to move around in careers more frequently, or even change them more than once; now, the focus of my career is not so much the ability to meet my own perceived needs as much as it is to have stability for those who depend on me.

Stability is good, but it brings with it its own set of issues: a sense of being trapped for one, a sense of becoming more dependent on circumstances beyond one's control, a sense of being locked in place.

This time of year is my usual "I need to get an education in something else" consideration period, that time of year just before annual reviews (and hopefully raises) that I become despondent about my ability to progress in my current career or start something different and think "If only I had a degree in X, I would be more marketable". Maybe - ask all the people with huge student loans and careers that pay less than mine. Maybe it's just catering to the fact that I really like to learn and am good at school. Maybe it's a recognition that the higher up you move, the more rarefied the atmosphere, and in my current choice I will always have a couple of marks against me from the start.

But all of this blends into a harmonious whole, a sort of low grade fever of despondency, which in turn tinges even the best news - a weekend - with a sense of "Yay?".

Accomplishment

There's a new storm in the ocean of my employ: Medb of Connacht.

She is fascinating to me. She has the sort of management style that one would wish ( I think, anyway) from one's own boss: forward, honest, open. She takes action as well, instead of merely talking about things or taking the input of others and then doing nothing.

I think the thing that is most interesting to me is the difference in management styles: simply put, how does one end up with one's style?

I am not by nature a driven man. In some cases this works well - for example, the ability to determine what is critical and what is not, and to have perspective on the daily "rushes" that one often faces - but in other ways it does not. The chief example I can think of for this is the sense of not really accomplishing anything or having the inability to follow something through to the end.

Why is this? Why do I have this sense that I have difficulty in completing anything? Two reasons occur to me: one is that I seldom have a clear vision of what it is I want to accomplish; the second is that I little sense of what I will achieve when I accomplish it.

Clear vision? I often suffer for it. I have many good initial ideas, but seeing them in their final form is often fuzzy for me. I want to write: do I have a vision of what that book should look like, or how I will get there? Too often I do not.

The second issue - more damning, I think - is that I seldom have a sense of what the accomplishment will bring. I'd like to blame it on a long career in which much has been demanded and little reward returned, but that is not strictly fair. It's probably as often that I am not clear on what the reward really is. For some things - like Highland Games, for example - merely participating and not being sore at the end is the reward. For others - and let's be frank here - the financial reward is either not clear or not forthcoming at all, which tends to dampen enthusiasm; after all, how many "emergencies" can you deal and succeed at and still get virtually nothing?

I'd not trade my own style - it's me, and has served me well in many aspects, but accomplishment has not always been one of them. Perhaps it's time to learn a bit from a polar opposite.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is something that is expected by almost everyone.

We believe in tomorrow as we believe in today,

thinking that as today went perfectly well or even ordinarily,

tomorrow will be the same.

Tomorrow, predictably, will come as today did:

slowly, gently, regularly.

But tomorrow is not predictable; tomorrow is wild and fickle,

because we do not know tomorrow.

Tomorrow may or may not come, and we will never know that

until we reach the edge of today:

for some, the tomorrow will roll in as the tide,

for others, today is the last tomorrow they will ever spend.

So how do we invest today:

preparing to live by the inertia of tomorrow,

or living now as if tomorrow was not a given thing?

The Fellowship of the Ring

To celebrate Nanowrimo (because, of course, you're supposed to read a lot of books to help you write) I'm re-reading The Fellowship of the Ring.

I'm one of that approximately 25 year generation that did not have the visualization of Tolkien's world through Rankin-Bass' The Hobbit and Return of the King or Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings or Peter Jackson's mighty trilogy in the first decade of 2000. All of Tolkien's world lived in my head, so I got to come to the whole thing fresh.

In re-reading the book, what I'm captivated by is how good of a writer Tolkien really is. Even with the fine adaptation of Jackson's (which generally held the closest to the book), Tolkien's vision as expressed through his writing far excels anything that the movie visually shows.

But the strength of Tolkien's writing, as I journey with him again, is how much of his writing is dialogue, the interaction between characters, or the descriptive quality of the Fellowship's travel across Middle Earth. Tolkien paints what he knows, especially in the Shire: much like C.S. Lewis, his descriptions recall an English countryside which even in his time was rapidly disappearing. You can see the woods and hear the streams as you read along with them. Watching Frodo develop from a Shire-bound hobbit to one who will self sacrifice, or the growth of the courage of Sam and Pippin- these are things which are not overt, but subtly happen over the course of the book - the hallmark of a master writer.

In reading again, I feel sorrow - sorrow for those who thing The Lord of The Rings is only a movie series, or even an online game. In thinking that this is all there is - battles, Orcs, magic, with some travel thrown in - they miss the greater whole, a work by a man who studied the English language all his life and uses it masterfully.

NanoWriMo

So I've joined NanoWriMo.

NanoWriMo, for the uninitiated (which up to yesterday included myself) is National Novel Writing Month. It's a non-profit association (sponsored by the non-profit Office of Letters and Lights), whose point is to encourage authors to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.

I have either taken a bold new step, or completely sunk myself in over my head (for them that were wondering, the required word count to reach this is 1,600 words a day).

Bold. As if it was actually costing me anything but time to write this. But I at least want to try.

I've two unpublished manuscripts sitting here on my hard drive, both of which (I suppose) have potential but I find myself harbored in my own Port of Fear. The reality is, I have never like the critiquing process that is so crucial to writing, so I write for myself and then hide it away. The fact I went as far as I did to start this blog is (as I think about it) more of a risk than I had initially considered.

But even writing these other manuscripts, there is a still a story that lies buried within. A fantasy, the kind of which I secretly (almost as a sort of guilty pleasure) continue to love to read. I always have an excuse: not enough time, not good enough writer, no idea where it is really going.

But everyone I read simply say "Write". Whether it starts out good or not, whether the end product is good or not, just write. The rest can come later; the initial part is the most difficult.

And so what better way to try to write than putting myself up against a deadline, in something that requires my commitment (the least expensive and yet most difficult thing of all) - and publicly announce that I am doing the thing?

So you, my readers, can keep me honest: do I end November with 50,000 words and a completed manuscript, or do I (once again) make excuses for not doing something I want to do?

Hang on to your seats. Here we go.

Winter's Coming

Autumn has hit with a vengeance. It's approximately 0710, it's still dark outside, and clouds and cold cover the view outside of my window.

It's amazing how a simple denial of the sunrise and the howl of wind can change the perspective of the season. Suddenly, one moves from the sun and blue skies of earlier (when it felt like late summer) to a sense that winter has already come upon us.

Being in New Home makes this harder as well. In Old Home, I knew the seasons very well indeed: if one did not get one's garden in or other outside tasks done by the end of October, they might as well be written off until the beginning of spring because rain was on the the way. Here I have no sense of what can and can't be done, or when: by the weekend, the temperature may be back up into the 80's and this sense of winter may be fully gone,

But not totally, I think. The sun will still rise later - until the time changes, in which case it will set earlier. And even the best of temperatures will have in it the hint that winter has only stepped away for bit, not traveled on until the following year.

Even in the sun's light, the cold of the coming winter can touch my soul.

Cold Front

Hint of warm sunrise,
As I wait patiently for
the first Blue Norther.

Entrenched Beliefs

It's amazing how entrenched beliefs cannot be seen.

Usually this is used in the context of things which are possible which someone thinks can't be done. Self belief, it has been said, is the cornerstone and change agent of life. Someone believes they cannot do something, when in point of fact it's their belief that keeps them from doing it, not actual facts.

That concept is the one we all like to dwell on. It's a positive story, one that everyone can relate to and see possibilities for their own futures.

However, there's another way that entrenched beliefs work: when something cannot work, but is believed that it can.

I was subject to another example of that yesterday, when I sat in a room discussing a subject which has been two years in the making. As we continued through the conversation, the basic assumption held by someone was that in fact that something would work - in spite of evidence to the contrary. All reasons for which something will not work begin to flow from other things - individuals, equipment, supplies - but are never pointed back to the initial question: will something work?

As I've sat through these conversations, the amazing thing is the sense of the individuals in the room as the conversations continue. Simply put, all spirit and energy leaves the room. People may be there because their attendance is required, but there is a distinct lack of enthusiasm or even suggestions at that point. People sit, get orders and leave, all knowing in their heart of hearts that the real questions have not been discussed.

This sort of thinking - not being able to question the fundamental concepts of a thing - are anathema to any business or relationship. In the end, what exists is either a series of "yes men", always agreeing with everything even thought it may not be prudent or true, or an environment where no-one volunteers anything, because any suggestions or ideas they have will (by default) be knocked aside or ignored.

Entrenched beliefs. Ignored at the right time, they can set one free. Ignored at the wrong time, they imprison far more thoroughly than any bars and chains.

Reorganization

I am going through one of my periodic work area reorganizations.

I always dreamed of having an office at home: a large desk, a series of bookshelves lining the room with my texts, subdued interior decoration of my Japanese prints, recessed lighting.

For my entire adult life, I have had none of these things.

The closest was when we first got married in Old Home: I had a bedroom which was "mine" in the sense that it had my desk and computer in it - along with the spare bed and a lot of other things (the bright fish on the bed's comforter really added to the mystique of "my place"). Since then, my "space" has slowly contracted, from larger computer desks to a smaller desk in the closet. My current iteration is half of a folding table located in the game room, split with half an area for crafting and across from The Ravishing Mrs. TB's scrapbook table. On the bright side, I actually do get have bookshelves for once, although their not the oak closed cabinets I always imagined but rather a veneer-faded white, open faced, occasionally having shelves setting on dowels which I suspect where not originally envisioned.

So I reorganize from time to time, put things on the desk here with the computer, then pulling them off later as I try to find the new "way" that I want things to work, or at least they work for me.

In a way, reorganizing my work area is like resetting goals for myself: what is the thing of latest importance gets moved on their, things that are not working get pulled out. Perhaps it continues to reflect the unsettledness of my own mind and how I view myself: never quite sure what is of real importance, or maybe that constant redefinition of myself I constantly seem to be undertaking.

But the one good thing about workspace reorganization is that it is, for me, a form of centering, of returning back to the beginning. By the process of reorganizing a place which I recognize as purely mine, it becomes a form of renewal, of reorganization back to who I am and where it is I want to go.

In reality, I'll probably never have the great office I have always contemplated. That's okay I suppose - I have the office of my soul, which is by far the more important.

Old Dog, New Tricks

I became aware this weekend of at least one concrete good that has occurred as a result of the move. I'm trying new things.

In the two years and change since the move, I have:

- Undertaken Iaido.

- Participated in Highland Games.

- Begun making cheese.

- Ran a 5k.

This list interests me on two levels. On one level, it is interesting because these things were all something that (in some form or fashion) I have wanted to do, but never found the time or motivation in Old Home. In some cases it was due to opportunity, but in some cases it was also due to will.

The interesting (maybe more so) is that I have suddenly found that I can partake in new things - or really old things that I want to do - and do passably well in them. Sure, I'm never going to place first in the 5k or hurl a caber the farthest. But the reality is that I can at least try to do them, and achieve some degree of excellence.

As I begin to think about next year, my mind is seething with the possibilities. What new thing will I undertake next year? The list is perhaps not endless, but there can certainly be a lot more on it than I used to believe.

We never become too old to learn something new. We only become too set in our ways.

Autumn Sunday

Distant traffic sounds

are overcome by the doves

plucking seed from grass.

Running

So I ran my first 5K yesterday.

I've toyed with the idea of running in a race and even - at one time - set a goal for doing a marathon. But the preparation never worked out, and then I kept injuring myself or kept being lazy, so that slipped into the background.

But I started again this year, and after making two miles regularly, thought I'd take a chance on running 3 miles and change.

The weather, for New Home, was excellent: overcast, mid-sixties, the perfect weather (or as good as you'll get this time of year) for running. Once the race had started and everyone fell into their rhythym, the most surprising thing to me - frankly - was how good I actually felt. Sure, my miles tended to slow down - from 7 minutes to 8 minutes to 9 minutes - and I had to fight the rather strange urge to use the restroom somewhere around Mile 1, but I never really felt exhausted or bad or like I had to stop.

As I came across the finish line tired, and walked away with Na Clann to the water and fruit, what I realized was that I still felt pretty good - in fact, better than I could have possibly imagined. Even today as I write, there are no residual effects: my legs and feet feel fine, no pulled muscles. It pleasantly reminds me of my first Highland Games where, except for some cuts and blisters, I was fine.

The running was fun but revelation - both that I can do such things and that even my less than disciplined efforts in improving my health are paying off - are worth as much or more than the simple but meaningful phrase "I finished".

Finishing is good. Finding out you are farther along that you thought is better.

Overload

One of those "Where am I going" moments this morning.

I piled into the car running late from work last night, having left a large stack of documentation ready to be put into a binder (for review, signoff, and eventual filing in a cabinet drawer to quite possibly never be reviewed again), a large pile on my desk of things to do, and at least two things to do this morning prior to 1000 which would only get accomplished if I showed up early in the morning. To add to my joy, I had a vague sense of uneasiness as I got ready to leave.

As I drove off (to immediately get caught in traffic), I tried to put work behind me until the next day - but it continued to creep back into my mind: what I had to do tomorrow, when was I going to have time to do it all, what sort of landscape would I come into tomorrow, what battles would I have to fight. I sat there in the car, slowly moving forward, twitching back and forth between radio stations as I looked for something - anything- to take my mind off what I already saw looming in the coming morning.

I'd like to say that I was easily able to let everything go - that's not, and has never been me. That moment of complete overload followed me from the car to my home, from my home to my bed, from my bed to my lack of sleep and dreams and waking again at 0415 thinking "Hey, I'm up - I can make it to work early."

I'm finding I'm becoming nagged by this vague feeling that I'll never get all my work done and thus I always have weaknesses that can be exploited by those above me.

Yes, I understand that I have to work for a living - but if never completing everything, a vague sense of dread, and the resulting sense I have to work more to compensate for a lack of resources constitutes work, is that something that bodes well for a long term destination?

Autumn

The chill of Autumn has arrived in New Home. The mornings are darker, the air cooler, the light attaining that angle and softness that only Fall can bring.

Autumn is a season which I have come to appreciate more and more every year that it comes. So often we think of Autumn as a time of dying, of preparation for the death that Winter represents. Trees shed their leaves, many plants either die outright or prepare themselves for the rigors of winter, animals scurry about laying in their last stores for the coming ugly weather.

Admittedly, Fall can often be depressing. Once the beauty of the leaves turns away, we are left with a variegated pallet of browns and tans for our viewing pleasures. For those that love the sun, the shorter days and longer nights can be depressing; for those that love the warmth, it can be cold as well.

But I have come to see Autumn more clearly.

Autumn is not only a time of dying, it is also a time of preparing. Plants are dying, it's true - but as a gardener, there's a whole new set of plantings that occur for the coming spring ahead. Autumn is also a forced encourager: mindful of winter, it drives us to finish tasks which we would otherwise delay because darkness and cold are hard to work in. It is that time of the last harvest, when the gleanings of the garden can be collected before the final die off.

But perhaps most valuable to me, it is also a time of consideration: consideration of our own life.

Autumn is a subtle reminder that life is moving forward, and that the time we have now - no matter how long or short in the temporal sense - will eventually come to an end. Like the annuals in my garden, there is an end to our season as well. The falling leaves and brittle stalks are my own reminder that so much of what we spend our time on will fade into the soil of life. Am I seeking to build those things that last beyond life into my own? Or will I awake in the spring of Heaven to discover I failed to plant as I should have in the Fall of existence, with no harvest there to be taken.

Winter is coming, that is certain. How we act in Autumn will determine what we see in Spring.

Communication

Communicating is a hard thing.

Communicating - really communicating - is not only the ability to speak words and have them heard, but be able to convey them in a way that expresses what you intend to say instead of what other people think you say.

I actually feel I'm quite poor at this verbally. That surprises me a bit - after all, I can be one of the wordiest people I know and talk on for long periods of time. At the same time, communication seems - and actually is - hard for me.

Writing is easier. I'm not quite sure why, whether it's the medium (not face to face) or the fact that I can more carefully construct my thoughts before they are sent out rather than have them immediately transferred to the real world.

Phone conversations are an interesting medium - which sort of convinces me that it's a presence issue. I have no problem discussing things on the phone with individuals whom I cannot manage to spit out the words to face to face.

Why? I'm not really sure. It's not as if people's reactions are different on the phone as opposed to face to face. Maybe it's the fact that people's reactions are visibly displayed immediately - and to someone who is so often dependent on the reactions of others, it's a small form of torture.

Also, the most communication face to face most often happens with those who are closest to us - those that have (intentionally or unintentionally) the greatest ability to hurt us. A reaction from your manager about an idea is one thing; a reaction from a loved one about a personal issue is something altogether different.

So here's my issue: how do I learn to communicate better, all the time? How do I learn to speak what I mean without tripping over my fear of reactions.

Autumn Morning

Cool Autumn morning:
The heat of summer is passing
as wispy clouds above.

Loving What You Do

Reminded again last night of the power of loving what you do.

I had the opportunity as part of a local industry group to which I belong to tour a local microbrewery. It's small - a small warehouse with a tasting room. Split into two groups after the dinner, we walked through.

The surroundings were minimalist, the sort of start-up industrial appearance one expects concrete floors, concrete walls, with the stainless steel implements of brewing towering like sentinels above you.

But the best part of the tour was the guide himself, who was one of the owners. His enthusiasm for his job simply oozed from every pore. It was not enough that he obviously knew a great deal about what he was talking about, it was his demeanor and animation as he presented it. Here was a man who truly loved what he did (he started out homebrewing and moved up from there), had a dream, and is working very hard to make it happen. His open manner and the pride you could see in his eyes as he spoke was wonderful.

As I drove home three beer samples the wiser, it reminded me yet again how critical loving what you do is the key to any success you will find in the field of what you do. With the passion for brewing beer, I'm sure he would have never found the drive to learn, to volunteer, to work in other places gathering the knowledge required to one day have his own company, and sell others on the idea of his vision.

Without passion, anything can become drudgery. With passion, our dreams are only bounded by effort we will put in.

Empty Me

Holy fire, burn away

My desire of anything

That is not of you, that is of me

I want more of You, and less of me, yeah

Empty me, empty me

Fill, won't you fill me

With You

- Empty Me, Jeremy Camp

Hope

Hope is the indispensable ingredient in life.

With hope, all things seem bearable. Without hope, no matter if one had the whole world, life seems nothing but a long tunnel of despair that never ends.

What is hope? Merriam Webster defines it as: "to desire with expectation of fulfillment; to desire with expectation of obtainment; to expect with confidence." It that belief that something we want or desire will come to pass.

Note that hope does not incorporate any direct consideration of the odds against it. Hope does not preclude the probability of hard effort to reach the desired end; what it does do is believe that such effort will be eventually rewarded.

Without hope, effort ceases - or at least significant effort. We can go through the motion of our lives, but there is a sense of futility with which we do everything. It's the practical sense that everything we are doing is going to be packed up in a box, eventually to be sent offsite and then destroyed.

The object of hope matters as well. What do we hope in? What do we place our confidence, our desires into? Are we placing them into the appropriate vessel, or are we placing them in things which will fail us?

As a Christian, it is this point where I fail all too often. I place my hope in things of time - other people meeting my needs, a fulfilling career, a comfortable life, a meaningful existence. Not that there's anything wrong per se with these things; it's when I put my hope in these things, rather than the One who provides these things, that I ultimately fail.

And so it comes to focus. Where am I focusing my own hope? Is it on the things that will fail - those "broken reeds of Egypt" that eventually will not be able to bear the weight, nor meet the confidence I am placing in them? Or is it God, the One who Himself is hope?

But I must be careful. In placing my confidence in God, I need to be wary of the fact that my hopes are not the same as hope. My hopes are often desires; His hope is purification, salvation, and glorifying His name. In putting my hope in Him, I must needs hold all other things with a loose hand, lest in my need to have hope, I hold to the gifts rather than the Giver.

Rain

I sit this morning looking out my window into the cool, overcast backyard - something I haven't seen for probably 8 months.

We finally received rain over the weekend - about 2.5" worth - and the resulting cloud cover kept everything cool throughout the day. That has held to this morning, as the gray clouds continue to cling tightly to the earth.

As I went out this morning to practice Iaido, the ground was damp and noiseless and gave a bit - not at all like the crisp crunch of grass and turning in the dirt I've been doing for months no. The yellow leaves of the falling oaks carpet the wet-brown earth as I look out this morning, nice blending in and on the yellow sun-seared grass.

The morning is muffled as I sit here and type, the sounds of life seemingly far more distant than they really are. A lone bird sings its morning greeting near our yard, as other songs sound more faintly farther away.

It's a comfort to me, as I try to mentally prepare myself for another day, that such things as the simple rain of God - long prayed for, much appreciated - can create a thing of beauty and peace almost instantly in the midst of drouth and dust.

Conscious Choosing: Vision

What is your vision?

Vision is fun. Vision is the future. Vision is that which we want to do, hope to do, some day.

But the problem with vision is that it often gets submerged beneath layers of life itself. Vision can become dimmed with time, dimmed with tragedy, dimmed with the daily act of living itself. Before long, the bright crystal windows we looked out from in childhood have become the fogged and dim with the coal smoke of reality.

But vision is necessary - indeed critical - for conscious choosing. We can make conscious choices with knowledge of ourselves, we can make conscious choices based on the values we have identified - but without the vision of where we want to go, we end up living in a small circle circumscribed by the realities we live in, rather than potentialities we conceive.

Fortunately, vision is probably the easiest of the three elements of conscious choice to discover. It's fun, it's exciting - because it deals with what we want to do with our lives.

Some starter questions:

- What impact do you want to have when you're gone?
- What would you really like to do?
- Based on your knowledge of self and your values, what is the best way you can express that?

Vision is the star ahead of us on the ship of Conscious Choice. Find that second star to the right, and sail on to morning.

Conscious Choosing: Values

How do we incorporate our values into our daily life?

Values are probably the most underrated and often ignored part of the combination of knowledge, values, and vision. Knowledge is always easy to convince people of (who doesn't want to consider themselves from time to time), vision is easy to get enthused about (the future is always exciting), but values are those hidden things which are too often easy to ignore or override in ourselves.

Ignore? Value, like knowledge of self, often requires us to sit down and think deeply in sustained ways about what our values are. Some are very easy to nail down but others are far more subtle, influencing us in ways that are surprising once we identify them. But without knowing them, they simply become ignored - or overpowered by other things we think are values.

Override? Too often in my own life, I have sacrificed expediency for my values. Values are often things which are not immediately or physically rewarded; the rewards are often internal, the result of a life which is in harmony with itself and what it believes. It's often difficult to explain to others the benefit of such an inner harmony - especially when the press is often to accomplish things now.

But in order to avoid ignoring or overriding our values, we need first to define them. And obviously in some detail and depth: the clearer we are, the clearer we can be about the conscious choices we will make and why we make them.

Conscious Choosing: Knowledge

How do we come to the knowledge of what is truly important to us, of what our priorities are in life? And how do we separate the things that are important from the the things that we say are important?

These answers are important - critically so - if we are to engage in the conscious choosing which defines a life which truly makes a difference and is a success.

The difficulty for me, as I consider the question, is the fact that what I often claim as a priority, a value, a thing of importance, is whether or not such things are so. How did I determine them? Was it my own determination, my upbringing, my acculturation, even (as C.S. Lewis would say) the fact that my coffee was good and I feel fine with the world? Too often I think they are a conglomeration of all of these things.

In considering the question, I think one has to start with the concept of time and limitations. We do not have all the time in the world - an average of 77 years for most of us - and we cannot ever do everything that we want. Too often we believe this not to be case: we think that youth goes on forever, or we will have endless amounts of energy and resources, or that we can do anything we put our mind too (we can do most things, to be sure - but at what cost?). If we believe time and energy and talent are endless, of course we will never focus - we will always believe we have enough time for something.

But reality is far different. There is a time for all of us, and our energy and talents are limited by time and entropy. Based on that, we need to consider what we really want to accomplish, what is truly worth doing based on those parameters.

Some of them are seemingly unrewarded in this life. For example, it is important to me that Na Clann have a close relationship with God and good spiritual founding. This is of such important that we have decided to sacrifice our time and finances to ensure (to the greatest extent possible) that this occurs. Is there necessarily any recognition or direct rewards accruing in this life? Probably not - but that's not really the point. It is a thing that is a priority to us. And it means there are things that we cannot do because of that commitment.

What I wish I had sometimes is the equivalent of a river in my life. As it moves through the plain or high mountains, it would grind or wash away the softer rocks and soils, leaving only those things that are harder. These remaining stones and rocks, I submit, are the equivalent of those things that are the true values, the true priorities in our life.

But whatever that process is, it must be followed. We must determine - we must be realistic - that ultimately, we all have limitations. The sooner we discover what is important to us, the sooner we can be about doing something to make those priorities a reality in our lives.

Conscious Choosing: Definition

"Define success, pursue it, and put a lot less importance on the other stuff. That's how to succeed on the only terms that matter: yours." - Jeff Haden

In this process of conscious choosing - of making a decision thoughtfully and knowingly, rather than drifting along with the flow of life - what criteria do we use to evaluate how we make decisions?

This is critically important. This someone, I suspect, most people don't do in any reasoned and thought out fashion. It's far easier to disguise a "going along" decision with a "choice we made" - but when pressed, we often cannot come up with the reason why we made that "choice" in the first place.

The key is definition - definition of ourselves (knowledge), definition of what we hold as things of the highest importance (values), and definition based on these two items of where we want to go (vision).

But definition is a hard thing: it's not like a television program which is piped through a cable and gives us "High Def TV". Instead, it's a reasoned and intensive process of looking internally at ourselves and what we value.

In the quote above, Jeff Haden makes the case that success is not something that can be generically defined. But many of us do, defining it as "living comfortably" or "money" or "a good family life". The problem with generic definitions are simply that they are generic and not really applicable an individual's life. We are all individuals; success for each of us, success that would make us truly happy and gratified, is as individual as we are. But without knowing, we will never take the step of actually defining.

"The unexamined life" says Socrates through his pupil Plato, "is not worth living". If unexamined is defined, Socrates is correct: we will not, in the end, have a life worth living if we have not defined how it is that we truly want and need to live.

Conscious Decisions

I consciously made a decision this weekend for the first time in a long time. The specifics are not important; the general concept is.

How often have I made decisions unconsciously, merely going along with the flow of things because "that's what everyone else does" or "that's the path"? Too often. That's a bit of a surprise to me as I think about it, because I think I too often don't decide anything at all - which is, of course, a form of decision making itself.

But this morning it was different; this morning I consciously decided for something instead of unconsciously deciding against something. I did it based on a sincere sense that the timing of the decision was simply wrong - and that I was simply unconsciously making a decision that would not really address the true problems I was facing in my life.

That's one of the great things about making unconscious decisions, I suppose, of drifting with the stream: we are never forced to confront the ground issues that we struggle with, the thing that are really creating the issues in our lives and placing us in the situation that we find ourselves. Instead we drift in a cocoon of non-realization, carefully protecting ourselves from the hard confrontations of ourselves that will truly implement change in our life.

The odd thing? Even though with the decision nothing changes, I feel a greater sense of control and progress in my life than I have for a long time. I made a choice for something, to confront those things in my life that need confronting, instead of merely moving them down the road once again.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood; I took the one less traveled, and it has made all the difference - Robert Frost

Back to Mornings

I'm moving my writing time back to early mornings.

I had moved my time to later in the morning, both to accommodate my new schedule as well as to use the benefit of having a functioning laptop upstairs I could access, being out of the hurly-burly of morning preparation.

What I've found instead is that the most valuable thing in my meditation or writing is not what I do, or on what I do it, or even where I do it: it's the silence to do it in.

The key to my own writing is silence - true silence, the silence of myself up early in the morning with nothing but my thoughts and the keyboard.

Why is this? I'm not fully sure. What I have noticed is that when I am writing later in the morning, my thoughts becoming clouded and hard to follow. My mind has apparently already moved on to the upcoming day, to the background chatter of Na Clann getting ready for school, to having to finish everything I need to do before I go to work.

In contrast, writing (as I write now) is a much more fulfilling experience. There is nothing except myself, the tick of the clock, the hum of the refrigerator, and the clickety-clack of the keyboard as I write. It almost seems that the hum and ticking are foils for the internal silence (and frankly clarity) that I feel: when I stop for spelling or to think, the gentle noises serve as the background I need to recollect my thoughts.

Working to go to bed earlier will be a bit of challenge, of course - but the ability to write and feel I've written as opposed to writing to get something out on the paper is worth far more than any 30 minutes of slumber.

The Epiphany of Love

I discovered last night what love really is.

Love is something which sometimes feels very hard to quantify, especially as one advances in years. Part of it, I suppose, is simply the fact that being with someone for so many years tends to dull the edge of what we grow up thinking love is: that bright, tingly feeling that makes every day bright, that makes every moment exciting, that makes the heart race every time one touches or sees or thinks of the beloved.

Another part is simply the confusion that our society has generated around love and sex. Simply put, for society love = sex. Our entertainment and literature glorifies it: love is physical involvement with someone else. If you're not - or not frequently anyway - you're not really in love.

The problem is neither of thing is love (as many others far wiser than I have written). If love is a thrill, then we will always be a people seeking new thrills and when that wears off, we will wander off in search of the next fix. If love is only sex, we will find ourselves constantly worried about if our physical life is enough, or if our partner will sudden turn on us, seeking the next experience.

What is love? The epiphany of love is that of a parent painstakingly care for their child, addressing every aspect of a condition that needs to be dealt with - not just the personal care, but the care of the ancillary items - and then doing it again, and again, as many times as necessary.

This example of service, of caring, of putting aside of one's own agenda for the sake of someone else, is one of the greatest examples of love I can think of.

Note that it is not even directed at the relationship between the parents. There are certainly no bright sparkly feelings, and no physical expression is exchanged. But this act conveys more about the underlying bedrock of what matters and what is important than the greatest Academy Award winning sex scene could ever do.

Physical manifestations change. More than likely, a sex life will as well. But caring and sacrifice as an act of love - perhaps the highest example of an act of love - is something which, I realized in a flash, is something so desirable and so understated it is often missed. And yet, the feelings and thoughts that underlay it are the very things so many people say they truly want.

Patience and Endurance

How patient and enduring am I?

Am I patient enough to diligently work towards a goal or objective that long term, even when I am mired in the day to day operations of life and everything is seemingly ineffective?

Am I patient enough to stay the course when the course itself is dark and cloudy and I seem to have lost the path - or worse, the path is washed away?

Do I have the picture in my mind of what I want to accomplish - that shining goal, that finish line- that I can hold before me as an icon in the darkness of daily life?

Do I even know what those pictures are? Without knowing, it is very hard to grasp them, to have any sense of going towards anything other than more darkness.

If I am becoming patient and enduring, what am I patiently waiting and enduring for?

Expecting and Working

"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first." - Mark Twain

I've been struggling this week - really, this month - with the dichotomy of success and the world.

On the one hand, I have Mr. Twain's quote. "The world owes you nothing." It's a profound comment - one that I think I have too often ignored or taken for granted.

For some reason, I think I've always believed that I deserved something from the world - you know, the "I've been good, I try hard, etc. Something should be coming my way." I have to accept, I think, the reality that it is simply not true - at least in the sense that it is meant.

The corollary to the point is that you have to work to get something. But here also I find a dichotomy. On the one hand, hard work is (in theory) supposed to advance and do all sorts of wonderful things. On the other hand, hard work and rewards are quite often not connected at all, due to the fact that while one controls one's work, one does not control the granting of the rewards. There are always personalities and political factors and rules that prevent such things from being easy transactions. So in a sense, one might say that hard work is hard work - and possibly something good might come out of it.

A second thought that comes to mind is simply that even with hard work and possibly "earning", there is often a bias against the rewards of the hard work. We have become a society driven by envy of one's neighbor on the one hand and a genuine sense of entitlement on the other: as a living, breathing individual, I am entitled to X - and you are not entitled to more, even if you have worked to earn it, because my entitlement overcomes your hard work. If we want to have a discussion about the roles and responsibilities, that's one thing; but I don't think we can equate the universe with societal norms.

Where does that leave me? Too often I find myself in any of these three positions: feeling I am owed something when I am not, or feeling I am working hard with no hope of reward, or occasionally working hard with the gratification of the reward. I need more of the last, less of the first, and a way to find a place or spot or activity or whatever in life where the middle one is true more often than not.

Perhaps I simply need to start with the basis: The world owes me nothing. Even in hard work, it owes me nothing. If there is hard work being performed and nothing is happening, then perhaps it's my job to make something happen - if not in that activity, then finding something else.

In this sense, I will not change the world. I can only change my view of it.

All I Needed to Know I Learned in the Highland Games

1) If you're trying, you're going to get scraped and bleed. It's just how it is. Keep going.

2) Prepare. Always wear something under you're kilt - you never know when momentum will take you down.

3) Sometimes the reward for doing something is doing the same thing, only with a heavier weight.

4) Kilts really are appropriate for any occasion.

5) When doing something, you will be most successful if using all of yourself. You cannot just muscle a weight to throw it; it takes your whole body.

6) It's about the competition, but it's just as much about encouraging those competing with you.

7) When heavy things start to fall, best to be out of the way.

8) Most often, the reason we can't do things is because we believe we can't do them. Try, and amaze yourself.

9) Balance - in caber and with life - is key.

10) There are only two groups: competitors and spectators. Be a competitor.

Autumnal Equinox

The First Day of Fall:

yellow oak leaves carpeting

the drought yellow grass.

Confirmation

Nighean gheal is going through Confirmation.

Confirmation, for those of you not in the know, is a process (also known as reaffirmation of baptism) in at least the Lutheran and Catholic denominations in which the catechumen (fancy Latin word for "person being catechized") in instructed in the fundamentals of the faith.

Us being Lutheran and all, we have the benefit of having two documents already laid out for us: The Small Catechism with Questions (by Dr. Martin Luther) and Luther's Large Catechism (again, by Dr. Martin Luther). The process where we are is a two year, alternating Sunday program in which they study the sacraments (for Lutherans, Baptism and Communion), the Ten Commandments, the Apostle's Creed and other articles of the Faith.

It's interesting to me, both because of the fact that it reminds me of my own confirmation (now 30 years past) and as a re-grounding (as it were of my own faith) - I don't know that I can expect my own daughter to memorize things that I myself will also not memorize.

It also brings a bit into thought the whole process of how we treat converts and deal with our faith.

I've the advantage of coming out of both the mainline Protestant movement and the non-denominational movement. Both have strengths - the power of structure of one, often the power of enthusiasm and energy and adherence to the gospels. Both have weaknesses - the confinement of structure and dead orthodoxy of one, the potential of no authority and misguided teaching with other.

In either case, the reality is that Christianity is not just a visceral emotional reaction or feeling, it's also an intellectual framework of what we believe, how it functions in relation to the world in which we live, and how we accept, acknowledge and incorporate these truths into our daily lives.

What is baptism? What does it do? What is Communion? What are the differences in how Protestants and Catholics and Orthodox believers approach it, and what does that say about how we interpret the Bible? It's questions such as these, perhaps not the primary fundamental of Salvation but the not unimportant Tier 2 fundamentals of what we believe and why we believe it, that tend to nag me in odd moments.

Many children - my own included - can tell me everything about the world of Harry Potter. Can they tell me equally about their Christian Faith and the fundamentals of it? And what does that say of us as church - not that we should not participate in the world around us, but that we can treat the important matters of faith as not as important?

Hierarchy

There is a hierarchy of goals and achievements that I had not previously perceived in life.

I have always understood that not all goals and achievements are the same, that some are more important than others. At the same time, I believe that I have discounted my larger aspirations to settle for the smaller ones.

Settle for the smaller ones. Is it really settling, or is it my inability to get beyond my greatest needs and fears (because these are always what limit us) that essentially "write" what I will and will not accomplish.

An example: I crave being liked more than almost anything, and so I step aside from hard decisions and hard conversations because I want to be liked. Of course, those decisions and conversations would actually propel me farther than the approval of peers, but because they are hard and because I shun conflict, I settle for the lesser.

For those that have achieved their dreams - however defined - there must come a time when the dream becomes more important than lesser things, that the going forward is more desirable than what is being left in place.

One thinks of those who have accomplished and achieved prominence: looking back in their life, there are undoubtedly situations and people and places that were left. It's the whole introspective interview with people stars grew up with: good friends and great times were passed through, moving to the greater thing.

Not all goals, not all achievements, are equal. The key is to figure out what you really want, and then move towards that.

Plateaus

I feel like I have plateaued in my life.

Plateaus, for those of you that may have forgotten your basic physical geography, is "a usually extensive land area having a relatively level surface raised sharply above adjacent land on at least one side". It can also mean "a relatively stable level, period, or position." The verbal form (which also works) is "to reach a level, period, or condition of stability or maximum attainment". Either way (and both work for the purposes of my discussion) it's a flat place which, while raised, is not continuing on any upward path.

Why do I feel I've plateaued? Because in so many areas of my life, I simply seem to be. I'm not really moving forward (at least in any measurable way I can notice); instead, I am at the same level I have been for some time.

Why is this? Is it because I've accepted the plain as the end of the journey when there are mountains in the distance? Is it because I have failed to realize that the journey continues on a dog leg, while I am sitting looking at the cliff, having missed the turn? Is it because it requires a new level of effort and I am simply lazy? Or perhaps that I have become too comfortable here on the plateau: it's flat, it's easy, and I already know all the routines.

Perhaps all. But life cannot be lived on a plateau forever - because plateaus, given time, wear away. It's either up the mountain or back to valley.

(HT to artofmanliness.com for their excellent article "Plateau Busting: How to Take Your Life to the Next Level", which got this thought train started.)

Monday Morning

Monday morning blues.

It is amazing to me how much my job affects other parts of my life. During the weekends, I have no problem at all sleeping 8 hours straight through the night. Sunday night, I inevitably wake up twice, always earlier than I need to, and inevitably feel tired as I prepare for the first day of the week.

Instead of the soaring feeling of waking up with a day of tasks to do (as on the weekends), I feel nothing but a low level of dull interest as I walk through the motions of preparing for another day. More and more, there is not sense of doing things for an accomplishment; instead, there is the dull roar of duty as I get ready.

How do I bridge this gap between these two land masses? It's clear to me that life can never be lived at its highest level as I continue to slump through week after week. At the same time, it's equally clear that the free fall of doing anything on my own without a well thought out (dare we say, God inspired) plan is not a recipe for success - it's the difference between taking the elevator down and cutting the cable: both will get you to the ground, one just faster than the other.

But I can sense it out there: the thing, that thing, something that gives me purpose when I leap out of bed in the morning, that gives me a sense of doing good here and in eternity, that makes every day rising like a Saturday. If I can only catch what it is.

September Sunrise

Crickets, cicadas

chanting as the full moon

crosses the sunrise.

Calling

How do you hear a calling?

How do you discern that something that bubbles to the top of your soul, something which has lodged deep within it, is something more than just a whim or a passing fancy?

I'm reading (slowly) Raising The Bar: Integrity and Passion in Life and Business; The story of Clif Bar & Co. by Gary Erickson (the founder). I like Clif Bars of course, and since the story involves food, it's certain to capture my interest.

But as I read through this man's creation, managing and successful implementation of a company that not only created a wonderful product, but has allowed a man to impact the world around him, I find myself hungering for that. Not only for the creation of a useful product, but the living out of one's values and making a difference in the world around one.

Living out of values. How wonderful a thing that seems to be, especially coming from an environment where values are not as nearly valued as the ability to get things done (in fact, values are not really considered at all).

So how does one know? How can one say confidently "yes" to a calling - any calling - and know that it is truly of God and not just one's own personal wishes?

The Right Questions

Do we ask the right questions of God?

Yes, I know, we all question God. Often it's the cry of a hurting heart - "Why are You allowing this to happen, Lord?" - or just as often a heart that wants - "Why can't I have that, Lord?".

But how often do we ask the question "What would you have me do, Lord?"

I know, we all think we ask this question of God. I believe I've often asked of God myself - but have I really asked it, or have I mouthed words.

To truly ask a question, of course, is to wait for the answer and want to hear it. And that's often our problem with God - we don't really want to hear the answer, or we're not patient enough to wait for it?

Don't want to hear the answer? More often than we admit. Because if we actually hear the answer, we will have to take action. And we're (or at least I'm) often desperately afraid of what God will answer me. If I ask Him what His purpose for me is, am I afraid it's something totally opposite to what I would like or that He'll make me do something I am completely unfitted for and hate (the reality is He very seldom has, but I tend to forget that).

Not patient enough? God answers on His own timetable, not our own. In our data rich and accelerated society, we're used to receiving an answer immediately (ala Wikipedia) or really quickly from sales people eager to sell us something. The concept that we might have to wait days, or weeks or even years, for response to prayer is something we can hardly fathom. If we don't hear anything, too often our own assumption is that the answer is whatever we predetermined in our mind that it should be - an almost assuming unless the answer is "no", it's "yes".

But (at least in my own experience) God will not be led to a decision, or pushed into it. Part of the listening, part of the waiting, is the process of patience and dependence he wants to build into our lives. Were we to truly listen and wait, I believe we would hear God speak much more than we do.

So when we ask questions, is it truly God's answer we seek? If so, we'll be willing to do wait it takes to hear the answer.

The Promise We Ignore

"Then Jesus told his disciples 'If any man would come after me let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.'" - Matthew 16: 24-25

How wonderfully focused I am on myself.

My world, too often, is bounded by me: my importance, my needs, all eyes on me. The lives of others - to the extent that the impact me at all - are measured on the convenience or inconvenience to my own life.

I can argue that it is natural, that God wants us to see to ourselves (He does of course, doesn't He?), that if I can't take care of myself I can't take care of others.

And then I am confronted (as I always am) by the words of Christ.

Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow me. Or to put it colloquially: Say no to yourself. Die to yourself. Follow in my footsteps.

That's where most people stop - myself as well. "Oh, the sacrifice" we moan. "Oh, the things we are surrendering. Say no to ourselves - what, say no to coffee? To a new book? Surrender my cherished goals - after all, if I don't do it in my life, no one will. And follow Christ - why, I attend church regularly, give, and even volunteer occasionally. That's more that most do!"

We stop - as I was going to initially stop - without the second part of the statement.

"Whoever would save his life will lose it" - not might, not probably, but will. Everything I do in the flesh to make my life better, to self-actualize, to be more fully human - if not done in Christ, will matter not at all.

"But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" - not maybe, not possibly, but will find it. All the "sacrifices" we make of ourselves in the end will yield a far more rich treasure than anything we would realize on earth.

Do we accept this as Christians? Do we internalize it - not in the trivial matters of coffee and books, but in the serious matters of life and direction and building the kingdom of God? Are we so sacrificed on our small sacrifices we forget the huge sacrifice of Christ? Even sadder, do we fail to believe the promise of Christ himself that in dying to self, we will find our lives?

Is the fact that we often feel so powerless as 21st Century Western Christians due to the fact that we have never - really - denied ourselves and lost our lives?

Being True to Self?

How true am I being to myself?

I grapple with this almost on a daily basis - the constant back and forth of what I am doing, what I should be doing, and how it is impacting those around me.

Then again, what is the self to be true to?

Let's be honest - there are portions of all of ourselves that if we were "true" to them, would end in a constantly hedonistic lifestyle that used others, gave all attention to pleasure, and eventually would result in our own destruction. So even the idea of being "true" to myself is somewhat of a misnomer - perhaps more correct to say "being true to those parts of myself which are worthy being true to."

But then I wonder: is there anything that makes those "worthy" parts any less honest or straight than the parts that we ignore? Is there some objective standard by which we judge what is truly worth being "true" to?

Because even our best views of ourselves are foolish and often self centered. I am just as likely to consider those parts of myself worth being true to as necessary (but in reality, they make me feel good or I think I am skilled at them) as I am to ignore others that I really should be true to, but ignore for some reason (self sacrifice because I don't like sacrificing, being kind to others when I don't really want to extend myself).

So when I say I'm being "true" to myself, am I really saying I'm being true to the core of what I am - or merely the core of what I perceive to be myself, which usually coincides with what I really desire. How do I find that objective standard?

Hot

How ridiculous:

95 degrees feels

like winter has come.

Cool mornings chill me,

singing of a coming fall

hard to see from here.

Being Wrong

"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong." - Joseph Chilton Pierce

So often I am a creature of fear - especially, fear of being wrong.

You ask me where this fear comes from. I'm not sure that I can really answer it fully. But I think it started long after my childhood and teenage years, into my adult working life.

Why? Because the things that are encouraged in childhood - creativity, spontaneity, a thirst for knowledge - are often the very things which are despised in adults by those that employ them (although lip service is often given to the contrary).

The reality is that much of the modern world is actual built on dependable, reliable, reproducible methods. Think about it - do you want your medications to be manufactured a little differently every time, or your cars to have their brake systems installed differently on each unit, or your food to incorporate random amounts of undesirable products? Of course not - we want (yea, demand) reliable, reproducible results.

In this arena of reliable, reproducible results, being wrong becomes more than just an experimental trend, a spontaneous exercise of inquiry, a quenched thirst for trying something a little differently. It becomes a costly mistake, something that will wreak great havoc on the system. And so, manufacturing becomes systematized.

But with that systematization comes a loss of that creativity, that spontaneity, that thirst. Does it still exist? Of course - but it becomes the preserve of a privileged few, the researchers and developers. For the rest, being wrong becomes so costly - sometimes costing a career - that even the chance of being wrong is never taken.

And so we continue to exist, slowly watching that part of ourselves fade into the small folds of our lives where it can live, a short of endangered species which has been set onto reservations in our soul.

But if being creative means getting over the fear of being wrong, and being wrong costs a great deal, is it better to continue to subsist in the twilight of creativity - or simply acknowledge that what we seek is beyond the sight of where we are?

Frustration

How do I effectively deal with frustration?

It seems to be a constant theme in my life at this point, from any number of angles. Even when I try and make the best go of it - "Today will be a good day" - something or other breaches whatever tower of inner peace I have tried to erect and leaves me gasping for air.

The net result? In some form or fashion, every day, I come home or go to bed frustrated.

Frustration, if you were wondering, is "a deep chronic sense or state of insecurity and dissatisfaction arising from unresolved problems or unfulfilled needs."

Hmm. Unresolved problems. Unfulfilled needs.

Unfulfilled needs I tend to steer away from - for my own part, much of what passes amongst society as unfulfilled needs are really unfulfilled desires, which are hardly the same as needs. But unresolved problems? Hey, I've got a fairly long list of them.

So here's a question: do I even recognize what they are? If I use a broad brush term like "unresolved problems", do I know what they are? Do I know what would resolve them?

So here's maybe a start: instead of just becoming frustrated, what would happen if I wrote down the problem each time it occurred: problem, what it would take to resolve it. Would that solve the problem immediately? No. Would it at least give me some sense of what the problems are in my life? Of course.

Through knowledge comes truth, and through truth comes resolution. Perhaps if I learn to see instead of reacting, I can more clearly understand what the nature of things is and what needs to be done.

All About Me

"A preoccupation with ourselves, our agenda, and our pre-conceived ideas, and a motivation to achieve personal peace and prosperity (i.e. pride) will be met with resistance from our heavenly Father." - Chip Ingram, Holy Ambition

I'm reading Holy Ambition: What it takes to make a difference for God by Chip Ingram. It's the first fully Christian book I've sat down with in a bit, having had my shelf overrun with business and ducks and self motivation.

The book is challenging - which is good, but also perhaps bad in the sense that it points to how far I have fallen from the goal. Ingram (who I'm familiar with from years past on the radio) does not shy away from pointing to the gaps that Christians often develop in their own lives. He proposes a six step process towards developing Holy Ambition: having an intensity to their passion and spiritual faith and discovery what it takes to make a difference to God.

One of the big steps (it's actually in the second step, so I'm jumping ahead) is that we need to get our eyes off our own lives and onto what God wants.

This is actually something I'm pretty bad it. Most of my life, simply put, is about me and my problems and my needs. I'd love to say that I'm not any different that a great many other people (That, I think, is true) - but that does not excuse it.

It pushes me, because I have trained myself (consciously or unconsciously) to think that life is about me. Part of it, I'm sure, is the simple fact that we train ourselves to be responsible. Who are we responsible for? Ourselves, of course - therefore as we work to resolve the issues that affect us, we come to believe that all issues around us are about us.

The other part - the not-so-kind part - is that I am a sinner, and as a result, I believe that life should be about me. My plans, my goals, my pleasure. The motivational/self help industry is no assistance in this respect: it's all about your dreams, your goals, your aspirations, your fulfillment, your self actualization.

Which is 180 degrees opposite of what God calls us to.

The second part of the quote from Ingram reads as follows: "By contrast, a genuine sense of desperation and dependency on Him and Him alone (i.e., a broken spirit) will be met with grace, power, and supernatural provision."

But that desperation and dependency, that broken spirit, comes from a realization that God is God and we are not, of becoming progressively more consumed with God and His agenda that our own.

If I'm truly honest, most of my life is about me: my dreams, my goals, my "right" to have things that are, my pleasure, my wealth. And how have I done with this consistent focus on me? Not so well, on the whole.

So there's the challenge: am I willing to concentrate on God and His agenda? Am I willing to become more consumed with His will and His agenda than my own?

Am I will to look at my life and its results and learn from what has occurred? Or do I insist on doing it my own way, even to the ultimate detriment of everything I want to achieve?

Early Morning Iaido

Bokudo dances:

pre-dawn light moves gracefully,

cut by discipline.

Powerlessness

I hate the feeling of being powerless.

I was reminded of yesterday as I left work: an e-mail, politely phrased and written in such a way as to seem as if the writer was doing a favor, but under the words was the concept "This is what we are going to be doing. Your opinion, while helpful, is not important."

It's times such as this that I feel so powerless about so many aspects of my life. Yes, I understand I have "the power to choose", but the power of choice is never an absolute that takes place in a vacuum; it is always constrained by the circumstances in which we exist.

Perhaps the most debilitating part of reminders of powerlessness is how they make me feel. Simply put, it drains the enthusiasm out of the activity in particular and life in general. Suddenly, the sense you can make an impact is gone, replaced by the real sense that you are essentially a "speaking tool" (as the Romans referred to slaves), there only to fill a particular purpose or purposes and nothing more. Tools, it may be recalled, have no power except that which is supplied to them. Likewise, the recipient of powerlessness is essentially the same: with the motive of the "blessing" of the activator, they simply sit on the stand, waiting.

The other debilitating part of the reminders of powerlessness is the how it impacts the environment. Spontaneity, drive, the urge to go the extra mile, initiative - all are drained away like a tsunami returning to the ocean, leaving only devastated fields and broken wreckage behind it. People may not always leave that environment but what it breeds - dullness, lack of initiative, lack of joy - would seem to be counterproductive.

But that, it seems to me, is not what they purveyors of powerlessness want. They often state they want strong individuals who are spontaneous, hardworking, takers of initiative - but what they truly want is individuals who will do what they desire with all of those qualities. Their need for power and control eclipses the ultimate need for the results they think they want.

Which, of course, is no fun for the speaking tools expected to produce such results.

It is a hard thing to realize that opinions and excellence in any part of one's life are not really wanted, that instead only the need to execute the demands of others is paramount.