8 ways to look at six months

That’s how much of the year is gone.

Six months. Seems like years. Seems like days.

I decided to give the two of us a way to evaluate these six months. I hope it helps.  Pour yourself a cup of coffee (or something) and sit on the deck and let’s reflect a bit.

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1. I actually know more about these three people than I did 6 months ago.

________                  ________                       ________

1a. And here are three things I know about them.

2. If I add my blogs posts together, I have written this many words that wouldn’t otherwise be written: ______

3. Though I wish I’d done more, I have to admit that I’ve given this much _________ (time, money, stuff) to help other people.

4. Though it isn’t as much as I think it should be, I have talked to God _____________ times  and I stopped to listen _____________ times.

5. I’ve read about ____ (#)  topics.  ___% of them had nothing to do with my job.

6. I have told _______ and _______ how much I care about them _______ times a ________ (day/week/year).

7.  Six months ago I didn’t know how to __________ and now I do.

8.  Though the list keeps growing, I have to admit that I’ve crossed at least ______ items off my to do list every _____ (day/week/month).

Bonus: Go back and write the numbers and phrases and people that you want to be able to list on December 30.

Where would you like the sofa

…or the couch or the davenport.

I’m not sure what you would like me to call it.

Although I’m not sure that the sofa actually is yours. A third of the house is, or will be yours. But I don’t know if that includes the furniture.

You know, I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t, since our house payment just includes our house. The furniture is paid for. But most of the living room is yours.

And actually, it really isn’t a third of the house. I’d like to believe that it’s about one-sixth of the house. About 300 square feet. It depends on the value of the house, of course.

I’d like to believe that we have the house about half paid for. I’d like to believe that the third of our mortgage that you will soon own, you being a citizen of the United States, represents about one-sixth of the value of the house. After 12 years in this house, after 20 years of owning houses, we’ve tried to be financially responsible. And the value has gone up a little since we’ve lived here.

But who knows.

I did finish new closet doors this summer, so that will make the living room look a little better. The old ones are still behind the sofa, but I’ll get them out of there soon. There are new African violets by the window. Hope made one of the round tables, Andrew made the other.  The square table goes way back. The two rocking chairs are because we like rocking chairs. We’re thinking about replacing the carpet, but maybe you’ll want to take care of that.

I could offer you another room, of course. The kitchen and dining room are really one room. It’s a friendly room. Nancy is a great cook. Some weeks the four of us are at the table three or four times for supper. We can extend the table.  It’s really old, having survived a couple depressions.

The rocking chair was my grandfather’s. He sat in it while watching Walter Cronkite tell everyone how it was. The hutch is really old too, not some fancy hutch but a basic durable shelf and cabinet.

I’d offer you the office, down half a flight of stairs, where I’m sitting right now, but it already belongs to lots of people. At least 10 times a week, while I sit here, you get glimpses of my heart. But I’d rather not feel that I was in your space while doing that work.

The family room is pretty comfortable though. We’d love to have you sit with us, watching the fire sometimes. A couple of us (not Andrew or me) might even play the piano.

Can we keep the bedrooms upstairs to ourselves? We actually are pretty private about some things.

We’re pretty hospitable. We’ll fix coffee anytime you come by. Or tea if you like. In fact, I’m going to make some now.

Just give us a call before you come, if you would. I mean, I know it’s yours, but a few minutes would let us get ready for you.

time to think

I need to write a clear, simple piece of prose tonight. It will be the core of my first funeral message tomorrow. It will be a ‘here’s what I believe’ piece of writing.

So instead, I’m writing this post.

I’m not sure it’s an “instead”, however. I think that I’m getting into writing so that the wheels are turning, the fingers are moving, the first paragraph is being written in a document that won’t be part of the actual presentation. But it is an important paragraph. It sets the context for MY brain.

The reader, the listener doesn’t always need to know all the context that brings me to the moment of speaking. In fact, they often are better off not knowing. Not because I have anything to hide, but because it is confusing.

You know how, when you want to teach someone something on their computer, but you need to figure it out first, and even while they are watching you say, “just ignore this. I need to do this to get started. Don’t worry, once this is done you’ll never have to do this again.” You know how confused they get? You know how you realize that you should have taken care of this before they walked in?

That’s what I’m talking about. I too often start speaking with “I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. But as I was thinking about it, I looked at some things. And then all of the sudden I realized that I could talk about that.” I’ve lost focus by the time I get to, “Fourscore and seven years ago.” or “Once upon a time” or “I never met Elise Lines. I’m sorry. I hear that she was a delight. But I know the God she knows. Let’s talk about who she knew.”

So I make coffee. I write a post. I start thinking. And as soon I hit publish, I open a google document and start with the sentences I just wrote.

Thanks for listening. I know where to go now.

Renewal

Nancy and I spent a couple hours on the Freedom Trail recently. It’s the path through Boston that allows you to see some of the great sites of the American Revolution. Paul Revere’s house, Old North Church, Boston Common, the site of the Boston Massacre. In those sites, revolution happened.

The trail is marked with red. Sometimes it’s a red brick path, sometimes it’s just a six-inch stripe of red paint. You follow the path through Boston. There are signs on the buildings. You can do it as part of a tour with people in costume or you can listen on your MP3 player or you can use a map that you get at the visitor center. Or, if you are like us and arrive after everything closes, you can just follow the path.

When those events were happening, there wasn’t a red line or a brick path connecting them. They weren’t historical sites. They were places where people lived and argued and laughed and wept and died. Real people. Real tears. Real voices.

As we were on the trail, we walked past three guys digging up the sidewalk, welding re-wire, making a mess. Right on the red line. Right where history was, people are.

For traditionalists, this has to be annoying. Hard hats don’t look good next to colonial frocks. Except, of course, that the minutemen were exactly these guys, working to live. For pragmatists, history doesn’t matter much. It was…and let’s fix the sidewalk.

For some of us, however, balancing the past and present and future matter. Taking what seem to be old ideas and finding out if they still work. Building new relationships on old foundations.

Three years ago today, I wrote the first post in the online version of Levite Chronicles. I had been writing similar things in a notebook for a couple years, poetry, comments, lessons, observations. I decided to try it online. I wrote for a month, didn’t write for six months, wrote sporadically, moved to wordpress.com two years ago, and have been pretty consistent since.

This is a pretty messy place sometimes. As I’m moving along my freedom trail, there are places where I have to stop and dig into my heart, fixing thoughts and perspectives and attitudes. Sometimes you just see the piles of dirt or the backhoe. Sometimes you see where the water has started flowing clear again after the pipes got reamed.

I had thought about doing a new look for the anniversary or formalizing some themes or something. It’s not going to happen. Probably. I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing, but with an effort to be a bit more focused, a bit more intentional. I’m wanting to take seriously what I’ve written recently about habits and dreams.

For now, however, thanks to you for your patience in walking along this trail, stopping occasionally at historic buildings, reading the signs about the amazing thing that happened here once upon a time, considering what it might mean for you.

It’s been a remarkable three years.

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Although you can go digging, the first post will be up again on Sunday as part of my “looking back” series. And if you have never subscribed to the blog, you are more than welcome. And look at the ebooks. They are free.

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too many words?

Yesterday, five books arrived on my virtual desk, from two sources. I bought another last Saturday. I committed to reviewing another this week. I read another and wrote about it already this week.

Between email and comments and posts and other writing, I’ve written at least a small book this week (If it were put together with the amount of white space of many other books these days, it would be a large book.)

Since last Saturday, I’ve been to most of two banquets, a long meeting with a large presentation, a meeting working on writing a large grant.

I’ve read posts and shared reading lists from the 83 blogs on my Google Reader list, though most don’t write often.

Some of you have had much more of the same this week.

And now, on a Friday, when I have a day off work, what do I want to do?

Read and write.

Which is great.

Unless of course I am doing those things as an excuse for not actually thinking through what I’ve read and living out what I’ve said. In our consumption of vast quantities of information, there is the risk of not processing any of it, engaging with any of it, taking it in, taking it home.

A friend recently talked about a reading group, where people are “expected” to have read carefully enough to be able to bring those reflections to the group. There is, in that expectation/commitment, putting people ahead of data flow. Another friend just asked whether I would keep working on a writing project. I would love to, except I’m not happy with the way I’m lobbing words into a conversation and then running away. What I would like to do is to stay and talk. (I’m staying and talking in some other conversations that I can’t give up, so it’s not simply a matter of saying, “If you’d like to, just do it.”). What I realize, when I am willing to look in the mirror, is that the desire to keep up with what is being said is activity which, for me, replaces reflection.

There is an addictiveness to “flow”. Somehow we need to add in “chew”. To somehow balance news and wisdom, research and reflection, monologue and dialog. We can think of thee two as “in and out” and “in-between”.

If we are all about in and out, consuming and producing information, we become parrots or skimmers. If we are all about “in-between”, the processing, meditating, brooding, reflecting, we may never let anyone else into the process with direction and suggestion. (I realize that these are over-simplifications. Expand them, if you will).

For me, this morning, that means pulling the books that are scattered throughout the house into one pile. For me, this morning, that means loading in some ideas and then mowing the lawn while I think. For me, this morning, that means finishing some email conversations. For me, on Monday, this means being part of Chris Brogan’s comment day, (Sometime over the weekend I’ll suggest some places to go comment).

For you, this morning (or whenever you read this), what does balancing “in and out” with “in-between” look like?

impending

We talk often about the calm before the storm. We talk about waiting for the other shoe to drop. We talk about a sense of impending doom.

But sometimes there is just calm before day.

Tuesday morning I looked at this small lake in Northern Indiana. The only ripples were caused by me walking out onto the dock. I had thought about taking a walk, but my walk took the path that ended here rather than the one that would have talked me further.

On this walk I had to stop. There was no place to go. I had to reflect, just as the water reflected the trees.

Okay, to be accurate, I stopped and was able to reflect, just as the water couldn’t reflect the trees unless it stopped, unless it was still.

As a result of the stillness, I was calm and, perhaps, avoided the storm. I was calm and was able to think and discuss and pray and contribute and understand.

Maybe, rather than calm being the front end of catastrophe, it lets us face it with our feet more firmly underneath us.

Maybe.

I’ll have to reflect a bit more.

8 ways to have a thoughtful weekend.

From my Google Reader shared items come these items for helping you do some thinking this weekend.

1. The Daily Saint talks about less is more kinds of paradoxes. Spend some time looking at these and then for each of the four, write one action step; “I’ll stop doing this one thing; I’ll serve this one person this week…”
2. Anna captured a whole new way to think about filing. The visual metaphor makes me want to grab some folders, label them, and then do a brain and heart sort.
3. Chris looks at old media and suggests several things that they should consider. I’m thinking about how it applies to churches, the in the building part (as old media) and then the out there, social mediated way. How can you apply what he says about the actual media to places that you are living?
4. Steve Dennie visited Starbucks and learned a new way to think about incremental impact. As you walk through your weekend, what one small think can you change that could have huge environmental impact-physical, social, spiritual.
5. Thomas Knoll thinks that this is the year for people. Where are you seeing people as opposed to technology as the focus? Even as you use technology, is it shiny objects or are you finding that you are starting to care more about the caring part?
6. Rick Mahn is doing an indefinite series of post on happiness, simple observations. Read this one. Then, if you agree, do it.
7. Before Sunday morning, you need Liz Strauss’ revelation from last Sunday morning, about the struggle with should. What one should can you let go of this weekend (I mean, other than “I should keep reading this post” or “I should let Jon know that I visited”)?
8. Tom has spent a lot of time in meetings, a lot of time talking and listening and helping people decide. Here he’s talking about not deciding, about the importance of waiting for community. What are the decisions that you are feeling rushed toward, that you know aren’t ready to be made? As you prepare for the week ahead, take some time to stop and wait and listen. Then, when the voices start again on Monday, you’ll be ready to only join as necessary.

Have a great weekend. Think well. Love well. Pray well. Play well. Watch them all be the same thing.
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For more 8 ways…

To recycle a month
To cross-pollinate your world
To fall off a horse
To audit my (spiritual) time
To waste the month
To waste your blogging time
To ruin your day
To be thanked
To increase your stress
To explain 2.0 friends to 0.0 parents
To lose your faith
To make yourself angry
To make yourself jealous
To make yourself depressed
To ruin your marriage

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