The next four days I'll be working (well, training) 7 am to 3 pm at Starbucks, and it's crazy how nice it feels to be able to look ahead at a schedule and responsibilities. Since April my days, for the most part, have been fairly unstructured, with plenty of things to be done (like FINDING A FREAKING JOB!) but no specific times I have to do them. Even if this job won't bring in nearly enough money, I think it will be really good for my mental health. And I get to drink free coffee, which is awesome...
But for now, I also have to get myself back on a normal schedule if I'm going to actually drag my butt out of bed to be there at 7, so off to bed I go.
Monday, July 14, 2008
One month later...
Well, a month has passed, and I've not been good so far about writing. I find that I have had so many conflicting and confusing emotions about this whole process that I've tended to avoid writing, as writing involves thinking and feeling, which seems like a dangerous proposition at times. But I want to be a thinker, a feeler, a writer... and I want to heal, which for me will involve gritting my teeth and being all of those things.
Some snapshots of my first month home... job searching... a 32-mile 4th of July bike ride with my parents... late night walks to Collins Park or to my old elementary school to sit and think... job searching... playing tennis (and getting ready for a tournament later this month - I signed up for it to make me get out and play in preparation)... reconnecting with old high school friends - Luke, Doug, Brett, Shannon, and others who just hadn't been a part of my life for quite a while... going out to bars with said high school friends and getting to know the part of Topeka that I never did growing up... job searching... lining up two coffeehouse gigs at the Classic Bean (Aug. 29 and Oct. 17, if you're interested)... trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to play to fill 3 45-minute sets at those gigs... job searching... getting hired at Starbucks (I start tomorrow) and realizing just how little that's going to pay... hence, more job searching... working out details of the divorce with Sarah... driving to Lawrence and/or Kansas City to see good friends who live in those areas... job searching...
I'm torn between the deep ache of incredible loss and the somewhat dim but dawning excitement of new beginnings. As I wrote a month ago, I need to figure out who I am post-marriage, post-(for now)-church ministry... and that's going to be quite a long process, I'm finding. And it may involve some trips down identity-finding trails that lead nowhere or to hurtful places. But I feel like I'm having more honest (if less frequent) conversations with God about the whole thing, and that feels good. It's so weird when you realize that even though you were never really trying to be dishonest with God or yourself or others... you were. So here's to discovering honest living, in all of it's messiness.
Some snapshots of my first month home... job searching... a 32-mile 4th of July bike ride with my parents... late night walks to Collins Park or to my old elementary school to sit and think... job searching... playing tennis (and getting ready for a tournament later this month - I signed up for it to make me get out and play in preparation)... reconnecting with old high school friends - Luke, Doug, Brett, Shannon, and others who just hadn't been a part of my life for quite a while... going out to bars with said high school friends and getting to know the part of Topeka that I never did growing up... job searching... lining up two coffeehouse gigs at the Classic Bean (Aug. 29 and Oct. 17, if you're interested)... trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to play to fill 3 45-minute sets at those gigs... job searching... getting hired at Starbucks (I start tomorrow) and realizing just how little that's going to pay... hence, more job searching... working out details of the divorce with Sarah... driving to Lawrence and/or Kansas City to see good friends who live in those areas... job searching...
I'm torn between the deep ache of incredible loss and the somewhat dim but dawning excitement of new beginnings. As I wrote a month ago, I need to figure out who I am post-marriage, post-(for now)-church ministry... and that's going to be quite a long process, I'm finding. And it may involve some trips down identity-finding trails that lead nowhere or to hurtful places. But I feel like I'm having more honest (if less frequent) conversations with God about the whole thing, and that feels good. It's so weird when you realize that even though you were never really trying to be dishonest with God or yourself or others... you were. So here's to discovering honest living, in all of it's messiness.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Starting again
In 24 hours I'm leaving California and starting over. At 28, I find myself moving back in with my parents, looking for a job, and with not much to my name. Pretty much like I was when I moved home after college. And yet not at all like when I moved home after college - then I was 22 and had very little to complain about in my life and everything to look forward to. At 28, I'm coming home as my 4-year marriage is ending and my first full-time ministry job has ended because of it. I'm coming home wounded and broken and more aware than I've ever been of my weakness and my sin.
So I'm starting over. I'm starting over in life, and I'm asking God to show me who I am as He sees me... apart from the roles I've had as a "pastor" and as a "husband"... who am I? One thing I know I need to be about is writing, so I'm also starting over (for the umpteenth time) on this blog, and committing to being regular with it. So for now I've got 24 more hours of wrapping up my life here, spending last time with the people who've been my support system and surrogate family out here, then I've got 3 days of driving (thankfully with one of those friends). I'm starting over.
So I'm starting over. I'm starting over in life, and I'm asking God to show me who I am as He sees me... apart from the roles I've had as a "pastor" and as a "husband"... who am I? One thing I know I need to be about is writing, so I'm also starting over (for the umpteenth time) on this blog, and committing to being regular with it. So for now I've got 24 more hours of wrapping up my life here, spending last time with the people who've been my support system and surrogate family out here, then I've got 3 days of driving (thankfully with one of those friends). I'm starting over.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Had a good talk with my friend Scott Parr this morning, and it solidified for me something that God is trying to remind me of: that He is regularly speaking to me through life, through people, through scripture...
Not a new idea for me, but I think over the past few years, I've felt just confused enough about life and just hurt enough by its events to feel a bit abandoned by God and to stop believing in practicality that He's going to break into my world with any regularity. Notice how I said that - "my world"... I think He's reminding me that it's not my world, it's His. I've been so stressed and disappointed by the way life is going in "my world" that I've been fairly unable or unwilling to listen to what God might be telling me about His world through it all.
Ok, I have a tendency to make blanket statements like that... I haven't been completely shut off from listening to God's voice for the last few years, but I think the majority of my time has been spent letting my mind be constantly thinking, thinking, thinking about the here and now, and I've had a big drought of devoting time to stopping and listening. Not writing much is a symptom of that. Bouts w/ mild depression and such things are, at least partially, symptoms of that. We're made to pay attention to what God is saying to us on a daily basis.
Because here's the thing I'm in the beginning stages of remembering - the things God says to us are absolutely, unequivocally life-giving. God is in the business of leading us into abundant life - not necessarily comfort, happiness, "success"... abundant life, which I think includes an inner peace that knows inner worth bestowed by God's mercy, even when comfort, happiness, and success don't seem anywhere within reach.
God's words... I think it's easy as a pastor, whose "business" is God's words, to lose the sense of awe and wonder that's appropriate for the fact that the God of the universe speaks to me intimately. But in this moment, I'm wanting to lay down all the things I tend to use to fill up my time and my thoughts, because I'm getting little tastes again of what it's like when God breathes new life and hope into "my world." It's making me hungry, and I want to get hungrier and hungrier.
Not a new idea for me, but I think over the past few years, I've felt just confused enough about life and just hurt enough by its events to feel a bit abandoned by God and to stop believing in practicality that He's going to break into my world with any regularity. Notice how I said that - "my world"... I think He's reminding me that it's not my world, it's His. I've been so stressed and disappointed by the way life is going in "my world" that I've been fairly unable or unwilling to listen to what God might be telling me about His world through it all.
Ok, I have a tendency to make blanket statements like that... I haven't been completely shut off from listening to God's voice for the last few years, but I think the majority of my time has been spent letting my mind be constantly thinking, thinking, thinking about the here and now, and I've had a big drought of devoting time to stopping and listening. Not writing much is a symptom of that. Bouts w/ mild depression and such things are, at least partially, symptoms of that. We're made to pay attention to what God is saying to us on a daily basis.
Because here's the thing I'm in the beginning stages of remembering - the things God says to us are absolutely, unequivocally life-giving. God is in the business of leading us into abundant life - not necessarily comfort, happiness, "success"... abundant life, which I think includes an inner peace that knows inner worth bestowed by God's mercy, even when comfort, happiness, and success don't seem anywhere within reach.
God's words... I think it's easy as a pastor, whose "business" is God's words, to lose the sense of awe and wonder that's appropriate for the fact that the God of the universe speaks to me intimately. But in this moment, I'm wanting to lay down all the things I tend to use to fill up my time and my thoughts, because I'm getting little tastes again of what it's like when God breathes new life and hope into "my world." It's making me hungry, and I want to get hungrier and hungrier.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
something new
OK, I'm tired of coming to visit my old blog periodically and seeing the same post at the top for the last 2+ years.
I just reread every post in preparation for sharing my life story at our pastoral staff meeting tomorrow at my new church, in my new town (Pleasant Hill) in my new state (California). Well, actually those things aren't all that new anymore, but a lot happens in two and a half years... what can I say?
I'm struck by how much I like a lot of things about the (at least nominally) creative and reflective person who wrote all this stuff a few years ago... oh, he was way too self-involved and made a lot of the same mistakes over and over again, and knew nothing about wine and acted like he did (living near Napa Valley has taught me a lot more, but I still act like I know more than I do)... but anyway, at least that guy was stopping periodically to reflect on what was going on, to try to listen to what God was saying in the midst of it, to try to verbalize it in a way that might possibly resonate with someone who cared to read it. I like that he was reading some good books, listening to some good music, and then trying to write some words and some notes and rhythms of his own that might contribute to... well, something.
I won't beat myself up for not blogging over this last chunk of time. The last 3 years have been very full, and have been very different from and much more painful than the 24 or so that came before, and I'm still deep in the process of learning how to healthily live in the midst of that. I'm not sure if blogging will be much a part of that healthy process, as I still find that the best place to take some of my deepest thoughts (after God) should be Sarah, and I also find that more and more of the things I might want to process are not necessarily wise to post for all to see. But at the same time, I like many of the things that blogging meant for me a few years ago. I want to start reflecting on the craziness of the world I live in a little more again, to be a little (or a lot) better at listening to God in the midst of it, and to see if I still have anything to say that might be useful to random people in the blogosphere.
So who knows? I may write again tomorrow, or I may let this post sit at the top of the screen for another few months. Who knows? But as I sit here thinking about it, up late because I'm being forced by this silly task of telling my story to my friends and coworkers to reflect a little more deeply into how I'm feeling about my life's arc so far... as I think about that, and how I'm not quite as happy right now (for a few different reasons) with how that life's going as I have been in the past... well, maybe this is something I need to commit to doing. Let's see how it goes.
I just reread every post in preparation for sharing my life story at our pastoral staff meeting tomorrow at my new church, in my new town (Pleasant Hill) in my new state (California). Well, actually those things aren't all that new anymore, but a lot happens in two and a half years... what can I say?
I'm struck by how much I like a lot of things about the (at least nominally) creative and reflective person who wrote all this stuff a few years ago... oh, he was way too self-involved and made a lot of the same mistakes over and over again, and knew nothing about wine and acted like he did (living near Napa Valley has taught me a lot more, but I still act like I know more than I do)... but anyway, at least that guy was stopping periodically to reflect on what was going on, to try to listen to what God was saying in the midst of it, to try to verbalize it in a way that might possibly resonate with someone who cared to read it. I like that he was reading some good books, listening to some good music, and then trying to write some words and some notes and rhythms of his own that might contribute to... well, something.
I won't beat myself up for not blogging over this last chunk of time. The last 3 years have been very full, and have been very different from and much more painful than the 24 or so that came before, and I'm still deep in the process of learning how to healthily live in the midst of that. I'm not sure if blogging will be much a part of that healthy process, as I still find that the best place to take some of my deepest thoughts (after God) should be Sarah, and I also find that more and more of the things I might want to process are not necessarily wise to post for all to see. But at the same time, I like many of the things that blogging meant for me a few years ago. I want to start reflecting on the craziness of the world I live in a little more again, to be a little (or a lot) better at listening to God in the midst of it, and to see if I still have anything to say that might be useful to random people in the blogosphere.
So who knows? I may write again tomorrow, or I may let this post sit at the top of the screen for another few months. Who knows? But as I sit here thinking about it, up late because I'm being forced by this silly task of telling my story to my friends and coworkers to reflect a little more deeply into how I'm feeling about my life's arc so far... as I think about that, and how I'm not quite as happy right now (for a few different reasons) with how that life's going as I have been in the past... well, maybe this is something I need to commit to doing. Let's see how it goes.
Thursday, October 28, 2004
Good things
Sometimes I suck at being thankful.
Oh, I've got a good excuse lots of times... the last several months have not been anybody's idea of a normal first few months of marriage. Since Sarah's been sick for pretty much the length of our marriage -- if you're someone who doesn't know about that and wants to, feel free to e-mail me -- we've not been able to do half of the things we thought we would do together, and we're having to learn to live with her depleted energy supply. My schedule at work is, to put it politely, not ideal this quarter - think "away from the house from 7 AM to 11 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays." And we changed churches in July - this is certainly not a bad thing, and we're excited about our opportunity at First Baptist (I'm the main worship leader for the Gathering, the contemporary worship service there). But it also means that we've seen much less of the people from Northeast who were our community there. Add in a few other events like our car being broken into and the death of a friend who was like a second mother to Sarah, and, honestly, we've been asking God what exactly we ought to be learning from all of this.
Sometimes I get a little frustrated with myself - I know that my problems, compared to many others, are not huge. On the other hand, everyone has their own set of troubles, and they are very real - as Anne Lamott says, "Still, at some point maybe you have to stand up to anyone who is trying to disgrace you for being upset with your broken leg when they know someone dying of cancer. "
But in planning for worship this week, I was going over the scripture with Wallace (my good friend and one of the pastors at FBC) - 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-14. I was reminded that being thankful in the midst of persecution, keeping the faith in hard times, is a very good thing. I know myself well enough to know that I can't do it well, but I do have a lot to grin about...
So, some good things:
Oh, I've got a good excuse lots of times... the last several months have not been anybody's idea of a normal first few months of marriage. Since Sarah's been sick for pretty much the length of our marriage -- if you're someone who doesn't know about that and wants to, feel free to e-mail me -- we've not been able to do half of the things we thought we would do together, and we're having to learn to live with her depleted energy supply. My schedule at work is, to put it politely, not ideal this quarter - think "away from the house from 7 AM to 11 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays." And we changed churches in July - this is certainly not a bad thing, and we're excited about our opportunity at First Baptist (I'm the main worship leader for the Gathering, the contemporary worship service there). But it also means that we've seen much less of the people from Northeast who were our community there. Add in a few other events like our car being broken into and the death of a friend who was like a second mother to Sarah, and, honestly, we've been asking God what exactly we ought to be learning from all of this.
Sometimes I get a little frustrated with myself - I know that my problems, compared to many others, are not huge. On the other hand, everyone has their own set of troubles, and they are very real - as Anne Lamott says, "Still, at some point maybe you have to stand up to anyone who is trying to disgrace you for being upset with your broken leg when they know someone dying of cancer. "
But in planning for worship this week, I was going over the scripture with Wallace (my good friend and one of the pastors at FBC) - 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-14. I was reminded that being thankful in the midst of persecution, keeping the faith in hard times, is a very good thing. I know myself well enough to know that I can't do it well, but I do have a lot to grin about...
So, some good things:
- The Boston Red Sox won the World Series (Hey, don't call me a bandwagon-jumper... I just like a good story with a happy ending).
- I've won $6 in Best Buy bucks playing the Monopoly game at McDonald's. (Maybe that's not a good thing... moving on...)
- I have a wife who makes my lunches most days, loves Jesus, and for some reason is committed to staying with me forever, even if it's not always fun. And I get to sing with her.
- We live in a little house that has nice things (mostly - well, ok, all - Sarah's) and has a little pond in the back (even if the pond is about 3 inches deep and home to several million loud water fowl).
- We have a cute little dog who only poops on the floor once in a while.
- The fall air is crisp and smells wonderful.
- I had time with my brother, Adam, last weekend, and our friend Joel Conrad the weekend before.
- Adam taught us how to play Texas Hold' Em (hey, we don't have ESPN, so I never got to watch celebrities play it).
- The kindergarten name-calling session masquerading as a presidential election will be over soon.
- Kansas is ranked #1 in the pre-season Coaches' Poll!
- I've been listening to Over the Rhine's live album that is basically the same amazing show that Sarah and I saw on our first official date.
- We're going to a murder mystery game thingy hosted by our friends Sam and Jen on Halloween night.
- I don't have to go to work tomorrow.
- For some reason, the author of this whole crazy story keeps giving me sixth and seventh and 3,000th chances.
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Weekend Update
Had a good weekend... Friday, we took a walk at Eagle Creek (a local reservoir), and let Bristow sniff around and explore nature a little bit. This picture is from that outing. That night we went to the World Swimming Championships (short course) here in Indy. Lots of Olympic names were there - pretty cool to see them swim in person. They really are fast. Michael Phelps was there, but injured, so he didn't swim.
Saturday we finished off the last DVD of season 3 of Alias, which means we have to wait until January for a new episode. Sad that I'm upset about that, huh? I swore I wouldn't get into that show, but I guess snagging Sarah meant I had no choice.
Church Sunday morning was good, and we had a good lunch visit afterwards with a couple from the church, the Justices. Then we left for Brown County State Park, which is about an hour and a half south of Indy, and is a beautiful wooded area with lots of hiking trails and camping. The leaves are only now just starting to turn, so I'd love to go back in a week or two, if time permits. There are some overlooks in the park where all you can see are leaves and the sky - it's wonderful. We camped Sunday night, and even slept a bit, even though we had a puppy who was trying to make sense of a new place and even though we forgot the pump for the air mattress. I'm a little stiff, but it was fun. We hiked a bit in the morning, and stopped at a local winery on the way home. I'd never actually been to a winery to do a wine tasting, but this place was really good. They made some very good fruity wines... I don't normally like that kind of thing (I tend to like reds like shiraz, pinot noir, chianti, etc.), but these were not too overbearingly sweet - just nice and light.
So, now it's back to work, which reminds me - I should be working, not blogging!
Thursday, October 07, 2004
Use of language in worship leading
Here is a link to an interesting discussion I engaged in with another person involved in leading corporate worship. The inital article is a little long, but it's worth reading if you're into this kind of thing!
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
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