2018

In the lovely mellow space which is the week between Christmas and New Year's - those by-design moments not occupied by the usual noise and activity of a vibrant family - it's not difficult to pull inward and consider the upcoming trip around the sun.

It has been my reality that, for most of my life, these earnest, tender-hearted resolutions found their speedy demise shortly after the midnight bells on New Year's Eve. In a stereotypical description, I may have had the want, but not made a decision. Such bland, overused word, and yet the implication is severe. A decision, as I continue to consider things, is a phenomenon of will, rather than emotion. With that in view, perhaps the best decisions are the ones made with explicit understanding that emotions will soon work *against* - rather than for - it. Because most of the change we seek are the things which have been difficult to obtain; accomplish; change; or face.

The right decisions are also intensely personal and highly tailored; and therefore requiring no justification to anyone else about why those, in particular, are what should drive me forward, and not something else. Vague semi-societal aspirations of 'better shape', 'better time management', better what-the-fuck-ever are perhaps the primary reason we jump the bandwagon as heartily as we do. Over the last few months, the sequence of primary life drivers have begun to reverse, for me.

It has not been a wasted consideration to attempt to design what my overall life vision is; and as that ultra-deep conversation with self floats more and more into view, the decisions I commit to are no longer in and of themselves, following random, albeit predictable, blueprint of 'bettering' everything; rather, they become specific, preordered support beams for the over-arching, ultimate life structure that I mean to be now intentional, designed, sought-after.

Armed with a more strategic view of life, it is also easier to prioritize the near-term focus. For me a somewhat-midlife transformation began with my physical self, and that change, once successfully permanent, has begun to bleed predictably into next life sequences (like career).

I realized while reading this morning that the things I find holding me back from venturing broader out into the world of those less advantaged - sick, homeless, hungry, lonely - are mostly two-fold. One is emotional readiness to step into pain - to truly fall into limitless compassion & kinship which, I still fear, will likely rip my heart open on first contact. My leading tendency remains to soak in the others' pain, and paradoxically, I expect my natural talents to be dulled and rendered almost useless by being instantly overwhelmed - overrun - by injustice and suffering. So preparation to live immersed in another's struggle is important (although I have to be mindful that I spend so much time in mental prep that I bypass the opportunity real life offers every day that passes). The other obstacle I face mentally is instability that remains in my own life, resolution for which does not set me free to fully engage into situations and solutions of others. Here, primarily, the 'undone' pieces center around my legal status (severe procrastination to obtain citizenship); and our financials - specifically settling debt and providing a savings baseline to stabilize provision for the needs of our family before I feel secure enough to provide for others (both financially, and through potential future career choices, etc.). It is not necessarily that I feel that lack of right paperwork or fat savings account makes me ineffective; it is that by failing to resolve this bit of life for us, I don't feel confident that I have the multi-faceted solutions - or frankly the clear unburdened focus - for others. It is a clean-up area of our life that I would like to address and put to rest, to complete the mental build-out of *me* that is more shored up to start traveling upstream into places where hurt lives, and stay there wholeheartedly.

I'm careful, in considering this, not to assume that God's work has to be premediated. But I do feel that stepping out too far before I'm ready - whatever that means, but I can usually tell very well when 'ready' comes, and God has proven immaculate in his timing of every stretch of the soul he's required of me - 'forces' rather than 'flows', and I'm aiming for flow.

In his perfect sequence, and through significant difficulties, I've already absorbed a high number of building blocks to the larger looming outline of the life I am aiming to live. I've learned to set boundaries. I've learned to truly accept myself. I've learned to take care of myself as a non-negotiable priority. I've learned to dislike digitized human connections, and reject the impersonal nature of most of the human contact now available to use. I've learned to fully own, and therefore freely design and implement, my professional decisions. I've learned that coaching and mentoring are foundationally important to me, to feed both my growth and my humility (which expands at the same speed as does my sphere of influence). I've learned to absolve myself of the weight of others' opinions, while neither neglecting nor being fed by those.

Advent

Madeleine L'Engle quotes Cardinal Suhard (Archbishop of Paris throughout 1940's) in her book, "A Stone For A Pillow: Journeys With Jacob": "To be a witness does not consist of engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist."

I cannot know if my life is lived in such a way - seen in such a way. I suspect that paying too much attention to how it is understood from outside can also be a dangerous path to a hunt for self-righteousness. Even so, this has resonated with me as a minor litmus test of faith; the proposed definition reminds me to commit, in the instinctive way, to making choices that are solely framed by the word of God, by grace, by holy expectation, and not culture, vogue, desire to fit in, or self-validation.

I know my heart to be restless, in a major, always-present way, regarding my impact on the world; the footprint of my life on life of any others. I'm zealous for consistency in my approach to those whose paths my life crosses, although I often fall short of utter engagement and pull back into my shell where I keep considering my role, my purpose. Similarly, I hurt deeply considering the grief - simply astounding grief and sorrow that wash over the rest of the planet, and I'm consistently troubled by my own perceived ineffectiveness to contribute to larger causes.

Austerity. Pairing down. Minimalism. Maximizing resources. I really do suck at unlearning decades of poor decision making when it comes to spending my 3 T's (time, talent, treasure) and filling holes in the mental fabric with quick things, or informational fast food readily made available by social media, which is both ineffective and terribly wasteful. I'm trying to pull back to the stripped-down, made-naked, fully-exposed, hard-core essence of who I am made to be. I'm closer now than before, and the impact of living closer to my own center is powerful; but I'm OK knowing I still have 'miles to go before I sleep', before I strip facades further down.

Jessica once said that money behaves the way you behave toward it; if it usually fills you with fear and insecurity, if money appears to you something ephemeral, unsteady, hard to keep, you end up repelling money - it is as if it washes through your fingers. If money, instead, is rather firmly in your service, and you steadily a master, it behaves well, sticks around, and becomes of benefit. I have no need to be wealthy, but I do yearn for fiscal discipline and freedom from debt and dependence. In addition, I want to know what it's like to freely give - to drive benefit to others. I'm 38, and I feel pressure to get shit together and get this aspect of my life out of shady corners of the subconscious, and tackle it almost aggressively - like I would tackle an overgrown closet, or an overlooked pantry. Weeding out, pulling all out into the light, sorting, divesting, organizing, putting it back paired down and neatly tied up. I think it's all about unadulterated freedom, in the end - as long as there are strings of debt and obligation, the world has its anchors on you, on dreams, on ambitions, even the selfless ones. I have to know that to truly soar, I have to grind down and clean up the mess first. That's hard and requires forethought and sacrifice, and more discipline in areas of life that haven't seen any for a while.

Discipline in general has also been a subject of some consideration for me. One easy definition has been along the lines of doing what is right no matter how it feels. Feelings, in general, I'm finding to be increasingly poor guides of sound decision making. I've had many a train of thought run along these tracks; from being mildly fascinated with Eastern cultures where self-discipline is exponentially more a priority than the Western - especially American - hunt for instant gratification and ease of consumption to the point of dulling the senses; to my own upbringing where the feelings & discipline were more tragically misunderstood and made to clash, and critical life relationships lost in rigid insistence on denying one their space & emotion & depth of spirit. For this season of life, I'm choosing some focus on discipline as a self-imposed method to overcome typical inertia and resistance to making deep, key changes to stabilize the health of several key life aspects - physical health; personal boundaries and setting expectations for others about how I need to be treated; clearly financial health as well; professional acuity which revolves around priority principles of teaching, coaching, focus, and learning.

I'm still accepting applications for a best friend. That person who gets me at a previously unconceivable level. During Thanksgiving, Laurie, observing me puttering in the kitchen after the meal, noted in my direction - "I see you and your introverted ways." I knew she knew - that I needed to get away from small-talkish conversation. For some reason, that flash of more than surface recognition of WHY I was doing what I was doing was superbly refreshing. I want this - all the time.