May 13, 2009 2:15 AM

Yesterday, one of my tenants lent me a movie. That's never happened before. Out of the blue she volunteered that if I hadn't seen it I needed to, and then lent it to me. Today I watched it, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." I'd been scrupulously avoiding that film. Not that I doubted its quality, but I was pretty sure that a sad, cathartic film was not what I needed at this juncture. I was wrong.

I do recommend the movie to anyone, its very well done and has like the cover says it must be experienced to appreciate. I'll give an update on where things are in a minute but want to talk about a couple things that struck me while watching this film.

I noticed how many cruel things happen in life, but since the film moves on to follow the major theme of the romance between Benjamin and Daisey, the tough things are in context. I found myself wishing the cruel moments away, wanting to get on with the beautiful, joyous moments. I'm now reflecting on the cruel things; the bitter sweet things; that I've endured, and wondering why I didn't feel the same about those. I have to conclude that there are a lot of things I've haven't grieved and moved past and it's stealing from my joyful highs.

I also noted that, even when characters made choices to avoid the pain that would come from walking through their ill-fated romance they still returned to experience part of it. At one point Ben decides to leave so that Daisy can move onto a normal life instead of having to suffer through his gradual regression to youth. But he comes back to see her. In fiction we realize that a human must experience everything there is to a cruel moment. We are drawn back to that moment because the pain of not walking it out is worse than knowing what it really feels like.

Again, we are doomed to suffer every dark happening in life until we face it and then set it aside.

Finally, I love the message about it never being too late for something. The only real gift of Benjamen's condition is that he experienced his physical youth (mid twenties?? maybe late teens??) When his mind and actual physical age were late 50's early 60's. Ben is able to leave all his worldly possessions and go in search of meaning, which is something I bet every man that age feels a calling to do.

Well, here's what's happening lately. I put it out there that I was searching for an RV, because God has been reawakening that desire. (like any truly exciting desire it's totally inexplicable.) Well an old friend from high school got sent me an IM and I'm going to make an appointment tomorrow to see one his dad has for sale. IT sounds promising. Now I just have to find the financing. (haha, I'm dead broke.)

I ran into a website where someone posted pictures of castles in England. Like a lot of people I love castles, but scanning through I saw pictures of Lindisfarn for the first time and I felt painful nostalgia for it. I've never been there, but I have a hunch I need to go.

Other big news, I heard from the production department at iUniverse and they have already completed my proof copy. So I'm closer to finished product than I'd thought based on their other emails. I will make time to go through the proof copy tomorrow. It also reminds me that all this warfare has been stealing away a high moment that I've been looking forward to my whole life. I should have been smiling my way through every pot hole on the way to this moment and I've been miserable and distracted. If I hadn't watched that movie tonight I might not have missed it all together.

This is something God and I have been squabbling over for a year or two. It's in God's nature to awaken the desires of my heart, deepen them, and then fulfill them. But when I look at characters like Abraham who are promised a child and then don't get him for decades, that doesn't feel like receiving. That attitude pisses God off by the way, but I needed to work through it. This is what I'm starting to see now: If God gives me a desire that is with in my grasp I'll just go get it. Look at Christmas, we have to wait till the last minute and buy something expensive because if its affordable they'll just go get it themselves. It's worse if my desire is just out of reach because I'll be really irresponsible and go get it anyway.

So if God takes his time and deepens a desire I have that is really big and way outside my grasp, by the time He brings it about I've lost hope and it feels anticlimactic. It's been a problem since I was young. My parents used to have to distract me at Christmas or I'd throw up from anticipation. I want things so intensely that I either must have them, or must loose them to end my suffering.

The image is one of me getting off an amazing roller coaster and God looks at my face and says next time try to enjoy the ride. Another way to say it is this, the purpose of ski diving isn't to fly or to hit the ground, but to transition from one to the other as slowly as possible.

As a writer I face 3 questions: 1) can I finish a book, 2) can I sell it, 3) can I do it again. I'm really looking for the answers to these questions to say something about who I am and that's not how it works. I need to be a writer because that's who God says I am, and then I need to write because that's what writers do. The part of me that doesn't finish things needs to die and be replaced by someone who savors every step of the process all the way to its end. This is change at the level of reinvention.

Season of Prayer and Fasting

There is a term for seasons like the one I'm in. Wilderness experiences. For those of you who haven't read the post before this one you should, because it lays the ground work for this series of entries. It isn't complete though. For one thing I forgot to mention the health problems like sleep apnea and high blood pressure that have added to my usual weight problem. My last entry also didn't cover what I'm going to do about all this crisis.

I'm deliberately entering into a time of prayer and fasting, and God has blessed me with a couple big opportunities for reflection during this season. God has also begun to reveal things and bring clarity, so I know that its working and I'm really encouraged by that.

The action plan started May 5 and will last until my birthday June 9. It includes:
fitting in a 5 day liver cleanse
change of diet and exercise (to be discovered en route)
writing in this blog daily (lol we can see how that's gone so far)
writing a book in 30 days (I've wanted to do this for a long time)
Simplifying and organizing projects

When I say God has really met me in this I mean it. There has been a ton of warfare against this, which is part of the reason that I'm just now getting to this blog, but God has also brought about clarity on the topic of my calling. Unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to loose my job soon, but I'm not too worried about that. I knew that the time for this job was drawing shut I just wasn't sure the timing was this close. However, I'm at peace with it if it happens. It was more disconcerting to be out of touch with my hearts desires than to not know how I'm going to pay my bills when they dump me.

That clarity is this. I do want to market my book when it comes out. I do want to write my next book. I do want to live in a motor home/tailor etc. I do want a different job that is more relational and less bureaucratic where I have positive impact on the lives of the people I deal with.

God has also brought about the opportunity to be on the prayer team for a boot camp, which I've done before but always enjoy the challenge. Another possible opportunity is to start my coffee shop/book store with Joseph.

I also have a couple of action plans, by which I mean I know steps to take but I'm unable to predict or control the outcomes. These is my next steps in the actions plan:
I will look at job listings (though I'm not feeling a priority on this)
I will look for a motor home/trailer (though I don't know how I'd pay for it)
I will contact Pheonix university again (though I'm not certain I should go back)
I will continue to be open with my feelings on this blog (so I don't isolate)
I will read the book in a month manual and continue to write the mystery
I will continue to read the book on getting organized so I can reduce the things I own to what will fit in a motor home.
I will continue to eat healthier and exercise more. (so far not too bad.)

So far so good.

A Change of Pace

I'm going to deviate from my intended subject material for this blog for the rest of this month. See I intend this blog to focus on true faith-based living. Not religious living, or Christian life-style choices, but following the wild goose (to put it in terms Wild at Heart men would recognize).

Well in being loyal to the message/idea of going where the Spirit leads instead of playing it safe, I'm going to stop blogging about it and blog it in my life for this short season in my life.

Here's what's going on: I'm turning 38 on June 9. I have received from God, a lot of description around my calling, but nothing absolutely concrete. Well that's not entirely true, I know that I'm called to be a friend to people. That I won't be accomplishing much outside of the context of friendship. I think that's pretty cool, but I was hoping for something more like, go to the pacific island of Truk and share the gospel while discovering a cure for diabetes. So you can see I've been a little frustrated. Not that I ever wanted to be research scientist or an evangelist, but at least that's a specific thing. Okay I know that what I'm asking for is an assignment not a calling, but I was just hoping that my calling would suggest a direction more than it does.

So I'm 38, almost, and I haven't known what I really wanted to do with my life. Of course something triggered this latest round angst, actually several somethings. Traditionally I've been working very part-time jobs and living lean (or above my means) in order to write on a novel--which I've just finished. I don't mean just completed, I actually went in with an artist friend and paid to have it published with his illustrations. So that process is nearly complete and I've been asking myself if writing is really my calling. I enjoy solitude, yes, but I'm also a people person and I can't write all day every day. Few writers can. Most writers do something else for a living even when there books sell well. So I'm back to square one, asking, "what ELSE do I do?"

Well on top of all that, I've traditionally been single. I lived for myself for many years and then I lived exclusively for God. I loved the freedom to take part in things that I wouldn't have had time for if I were trying to support a family. Then I fell in love with a woman and her three daughters. Ami and the girls made me open my heart to more--I had to grow new chambers and I had to morn the loss of freedom I'd come to enjoy. After I'd crossed that bridge and couldn't turn back Ami decided that where she was in life needed to be alone so that she could grow. She has completely cut off communication and its been really hard because we in the same home church group.

Speaking of the home group. I've been seeking a mythic fellowship for several years. I came back to Christ when my father died in 2003. I didn't really make a go of it until August 2004 when I attended a Wild at Heart boot camp but ever since then I've been seeking a group to fellowship with/live life in the same direction with. I've tried on several occasions to form such a group but something always happened and people pulled up short of real togetherness in favor of superficial church-type relationships. This latest group has made it about the furthest, but that has been aggravating lately too, because I am going through all this emotion and they don't seem able to process it.

So in my calling, my intimate allies, and my love life are all going through a crisis. I feel terribly cliche part of the time, but I also know God enough to know that I'm in a terrific place. Based on my past experience with God I can say with certainty that crisis is an opportunity for God to bring clarity and blessing into a place that I've been holding Him out of. So if God is going to bring clarity and blessing to these three major aspects of my life I'm strapping in for the ride of my life. I believe my future is on the line and I'm going to live or die trying.

More soon.

this is great

read Colossians 1-27 if you don't believe it.

From a Friend's Email

Dear Guys,

For those of you I haven't talked to recently I miss you and continue to have fond memories of our mission, battles, and successes in setting men free together. I know of none of us who have not been financially adversely affected by the current economy, there really has been no safe place to hide in terms of this worlds safe havens. We need to remember that America's (and most of the western world's) incredible prosperity over the last 100 years is a statistical anomaly when compared to what the world has looked like for the past 6,000 years.

I have been reading a great book called Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster (who graduated from George Fox University) and it has really helped me put some things in perspective during my own desert journey with Jesus. First, as I read Mark 4:35 where Christ take the disciples across the lake at night and the furious storm comes up. Were the disciples in sin? No, clearly they were following Christ very closely. Was prudence recommended given it was night, these fisherman knew how quickly storms could come up, should they have said no? Clearly not. Was Christ surprised by the storm? No he was able to sleep soundly right through the middle of it due to his power and peace of the father in Him.

Why did Jesus allow the disciples to be scared out of their wits, just to prove a point? To be a mean God? No, he was "loving" them by having a chance to very personally show them His power in a way that would blow them away. Of all of his miracles this one probably impacted them the most because they were well versed in boating and "knew" no one could calm the storm instantly. Even if the wind dies down suddenly the waves usually continue to rock the shore for hours afterwards due to the built up kinetic energy in the water.

And what was the key thing Jesus wanted them to take away from this? Trust, trust that He has the power to walk through anything with us no matter how "knowledgeable" we are about the subject, or how many times we have tried and failed etc. He wants peace in our inner world regardless of the external world going on around us.

2 Cor 4:8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

So I find myself meditating on the thoughts of being in a small boat with waves crashing all around and Jesus is sleeping soundly next to me with a small blanket over Him. All I need to do is reach out to His hand and hold it and He gently wakes up and says "it is going to be all right, I am with you, just trust in me".

I truly love you guys and pray for the freedom that comes from Trusting God in your lives. If there is anything I can do for anyone of you please do not hesitate to call or e-mail me we will always be the church together to this world as long as we live on this earth.


In Christ's Love,

Remember Your Heart

I've learned that I like my teacher because she cries when we sings "Silent Night".
Age 5

I've learned that our dog doesn't want to eat my broccoli either.
Age 7

I've learned that when I wave to people in the country, they stop what they are doing and wave back.
Age 9

I've learned that just when I get my room the way I like it, Mom makes me clean it up again.
Age 12

I've learned that if you want to cheer yourself up, you should try cheering someone else up.
Age 14

I've learned that although it's hard to admit it, I'm secretly glad my parents are strict with me.
Age 15

I've learned that silent company is often more healing than words of advice.
Age 24



I've learned that brushing my child's hair is one of life's great pleasures.
Age 26

I've learned that wherever I go, the world's worst drivers have followed me there.
Age 29

I've learned that if someone says something unkind about me, I must live so that no one will believe it.
Age 30

I've learned that there are people who love you dearly but just don't know how to show it.
Age 42

I've learned that you can make some one's day by simply sending them a little note.
Age 44

I've learned that the greater a person's sense of guilt, the greater his or her need to cast blame on others.
Age 46

I've learned that children and grandparents are natural allies.
Age 47

I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.
Age 48



I've learned that singing "Amazing Grace" can lift my spirits for hours.
Age 49

I've learned that motel mattresses are better on the side away from the phone.
Age 50

I've learned that you can tell a lot about a man by the way he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.
Age 51

I've learned that keeping a vegetable garden is worth a medicine cabinet full of pills.
Age 52

I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you miss them terribly after they die.
Age 53

I've learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life.
Age 58

I've learned that if you want to do something positive for your children, work to improve your marriage.
Age 61



I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.
Age 62

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catchers mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.
Age 64

I've learned that if you pursue happiness, it will elude you. But if you focus on your family, the needs of others, your work, meeting new people, and doing the very best you can, happiness will find you.
Age 65

I've learned that whenever I decide something with kindness, I usually make the right decision.
Age 66

I've learned that everyone can use a prayer.
Age 72

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.
Age 82

I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch-holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.
Age 90

I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.
Age 92

Repost from Micheal Q. Pink

Too Much Bad News...


“Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” Matthew 12:34 “Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life.” Proverbs 4:23 Amplified

Yesterday I shared how the flow from your heart determines in large part the boundaries or borders or limits of the territory you will be able to possess. Be that financial, real estate, spiritual, etc. The flow from our heart consists primarily of the words we speak and the actions we take.

If the abundance of our heart produces words leading to action resulting in a life experience defined by boundaries, and if we find those boundaries or limitations very uncomfortable or constrained, it could be a clue to us to examine what we’ve been letting in our heart.

If you want to change your circumstances, you will need to change your actions. You will also need to change your words and that means changing what you feed upon or allow in your heart. Maybe this is just for me, but I realized that I feed too much upon news, both the mainstream, censored, unfair and imbalanced news and the alternative, somewhat angry, on the fringe, out of the norm kind of news you don’t see on the TV networks. Regardless of the source, none of it inspires hope or life or faith for me.

I don’t want the news media or the entertainment world to so fill my heart that my borders are defined by them. A little goes a long way! So I have cut way back and in its place begun deliberately at a much higher volume, filling my heart with exactly what I want to come out of my mouth and see lived out in my actions and reactions in life. More to the point, I want to enlarge my borders and I know they won’t be enlarged as long as I keep putting in the same information that got me where I am now. I am consciously choosing to deposit much more good into my heart and far less of the negative input that I have grown so addicted to. Does anyone relate to this?

And if you do, you might consider watching a full day seminar with 11 leaders who were asked to pass on their most important lessons learned for business as if we were their only heir and this was their last time to speak. It was called Taking Back The Gates and you will get the entire event in both CD and DVD format for a total of $39. I keep mentioning this offer because it is the best value offer we have ever made and so many of you keep ordering it for yourself of for Christmas presents. Click here to watch a short video and if you haven’t ordered this yet, think of it as an investment in your heart and your future boundaries. (While quantities last)