Sometimes it feels like there is nothing left to give. In high school and college I didn't keep a lot of money in my account. It was my own doing; my parents had brought me up to work and save, but I wanted to impress people and my pants developed a good-sized hole in the pocket. A savings account was something I figured people started worrying about when their main income wasn't single digits/hour. It was a kind of a freeing feeling to have some independence and almost no money. I started this habit of filling my gas tank just a little bit at a time. From 16-22 there were a handful of times in a year where I'd fill all the way up. I ran out of gas a lot. The gauge was broken on my '92 F150 and the thing got like 7 miles to the gallon on a day when I was shifting properly. I'm not sure I ever remember feeling very stressed about it. Things worked out somehow. Being a person with more responsibility is different. Reliability is important and flexibility and spontaneity can be more challenging. But I am still in the habit of running out of gas. Metaphorically, of course. In life I have many roles to fill. These roles require energy, inspiration and time. Sometimes I'm running low and don't take the time to fill. The closer the meter moves towards E the more anxious I feel, the more upset I get, and the easier I trigger. The situations may be different but my solutions are still the same. Its an old habit. Things always work out. Reflections on Required Life in the Midwest Hands loose on a worn steering wheel Rolling through the mundane Finding poetry where it can be found -A local bookstore, the worn hoop in my parents' driveway, the hum and click of a fishing rod- Windows open to a chill October Fueling up on inspiration Running on coffee and sunsets, A fiery look and a sermon Nearing empty And then remembering What moves me And taking time to fill Or sputtering to a halt stranded Springsteen and Browne play a concert Til good friends or family bail me out. Occasionally, A gas can is in the back I make the trek to the local fillin’ station (As Papaw calls it) Splash enough to haul back It's time consuming, sure But, "you have to do it the hard way" Maybe in the future I won't go so long Without a poem, a sunset, a prayer Or the rhythmic flow of common purpose Propelling me forward Dear reader, my encouragement to you is to join me this week in remembering what moves you and create a pocket of time to fuel. If there is some artifact or practice you use for fuel/instruction, a verse, a song, a sermon, a poem, a prayer, a photo, a work of art, a meditation, a speech, a comedy routine, a workout, a playlist, whatever it is, feel free to drop it in the comments section below. If you are not a subscriber, and you want to be, click subscribe and enter your email to get a weekly update. A share is always appreciated. SUBSCRIBE
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A post on sustainability Fieldstone: Loose stone separated from ledges by natural processes and scattered through or upon the soil. Methods of transport have changed over thousands of years of rock-picking, but the idea is still the same: look for rocks and pick them up. For farmers this back-breaking, eye-straining chore is a proactive requirement. Rocks harm equipment, rocks impede growth, must remove rocks. Farming is full of simple truths. Like, two things you need for successful rock-picking are a strong back and a good attitude. Rocks grow in fields for a couple reasons. A natural environmental reason: loose stone separates from ledges and becomes displaced and buried. As the ground freezes and thaws with seasonal swings the porousness of soil and the temperature-retaining rocks respond differently to the environmental changes. Ground shifts little by little pushing rocks towards the surface, where they are unearthed by a cultivator or break through by natural means. An industrial reason: spare resources are buried or drug into fields. An old foundation from a house or barn, excess asphalt from a pothole find their way into a field. These sections are notoriously rocky. Fieldstone is infamous in some rockier areas, like the northeastern parts of the United States. People have developed uses for them, stacking miles and miles of low stone walls that have been formed by farmers clearing fields, or neighbors looking to build a wall. There is nothing particularly exciting about scanning a field, telling a driver “one over here”, jumping off a truck, digging your hands into the dirt, bending down to lift a stone that weighs somewhere between 2 and 70 lbs. and chucking it onto a trailer. Except it feels like being human. The human element begins in the fingers as I brace them to hold the weight of the rock. Muscles tense and strain and wear with repetition. My blood begins to pump warmly and my nerves normalize the sensation of dirt on my hands and in my fingernails. The rock's cool, rough surface moves coarsely in my palm. And all the labor works its way into my heart. I internalize the feedback, it moves into my brain and from my brain to my soul. Participation in this primal activity starts to evoke compassion for millions of laborers over thousands of years who have subjected themselves to sun, wind, weather and all things elemental. In my heart there is a concession to the earth on which I tread; an acknowledgement to the dirt that it is my heritage, my sustenance, and my legacy. And as sweat beads, I feel the calming effects of effort producing immediate result. There is something satisfying when a cleared field lies where there was rocky soil. It's beautiful to see dark earth, ready and listening, freed to pursue its purpose, free to give life. And here, in an open field, in the perpetual flow of humility, subjection, confession, empowerment I’m cycling and clearing. Until the pink and orange hues of a brilliant October sunset fade into a hazy dusk, all the colors bleed into one, and the low rumble of the engine and faint calls of geese play the recessional. We’re going home. This is my encouragement to you, dear reader, and to myself. Clear the field. Put in the effort to hear, to understand, and to grow. Lord we pray we cultivate a mindset to accept your word Lord we pray we possess the vulnerability to accept your word Lord we pray we are filled with the courage to enact your word Lord we acknowledge it is you who gives Lord we acknowledge it is you who takes Blessed is the name of the Lord If you are not a subscriber, and you want to be, click subscribe and enter your email to get a weekly update. A share is always appreciated. SUBSCRIBE
A post on minimalism: and letting go Reality doesn’t seem to care too much about my feelings. February 12, 2016, two months into engagement, I crafted what I hoped would be the most romantic valentine’s day in history. St. Valentine would applaud from beyond; Nicholas Sparks would write a book about it; Netflix would pick up the movie rights; and my new fiancé would melt into a puddle of adoration, thrilled at the thought of spending the rest of her life with me. The photo above is my college bedroom flipped into an Italian restaurant. Framed photos of Rome hang on the wall. Candles, Christmas lights and DIY pendants illuminate scattered roses and a homemade dinner tops a white cloth covering a handmade table for two—built specially for this occasion. Cole, Wonder, Fitzgerald, Sinatra and Crosby were serenading from the hidden speaker. It all came together as I’d hoped. You may be thinking, “wow that is so sweet.” Or “wow, this dude is crazy.” I was thinking, “she is going to think I am amazing.” The rest of this story doesn’t follow my script. It wasn't logged as the most romantic valentine’s days in history. It’s archived as one of my greatest failures. You see—expressions of love are not about me. I had fixed in my mind a vision of the outcome. I pictured her exact face and I wrote and recited her lines. But reality isn’t a play or a story. And I am not the author. If I had been planning this romantic night with some empathy it may have occurred to me my fiancé was coming off a difficult week of classes. I would have thought about her attempts to deal with the logistics of planning a wedding that successfully fulfilled the dreams of people she loves dearly. I may have remembered formalities signify expectations to her and lead to initial discomfort that softens as an evening becomes more relaxed. I may have even realized her greatest wish for Valentine’s day weekend was to just spend time with me. But all of this was lost. I had blinders on. I didn't just have a vision of environment, I had a required result. And when her first words were not, “You are so amazing!” and her first action was not a leap into my arms, my response to her off-script behavior is etched in my memory as one of the most sad and embarrassing things I’ve ever done. I looked at her with disappointment and said, “Seriously??” This one word took all the labor and thought I put into creating a lovely evening and spoiled it. Like bad yeast working through bread. My sacrifice was martyrdom. My love language was selfishness. I was a sham. Remember this folks: If you try to manage outcomes you will always be disappointed. That is not your job. I have this script with God sometimes. I barter for blessings. I question why I don’t receive what I’ve “rightfully” earned. I say things like, I did this right, I made my sacrifice, why aren’t you holding up your end? And just like that I’ve spoiled all my love. Shakespeare said, “love is not love which alters when it alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove it is an ever-fixed mark…” There is wide discourse on the meaning of this poem, this is my take. My expressions of love are not dependent on the world following my script. Love is not my story. It is not a story of my success and things going according to my plans. Love is a story of human error and uncommon grace and unnatural kindness. Here is an interjection of common sense. If my then fiancé, and now wife, would have burned down my dream or insulted me for trying to show love, there would be cause for a boundary. There are base expectations we must have and real consequences when these expectations are breached. Her only fault was failure to respond how I desired.This is not a fault at all. This is selfishness stemming from my desire to control her feelings towards me. Managing outcomes leads to a failure to recognize the importance of the process. It can mean anxiety when faced with variables (like humans being humans). And it sometimes means people ignore reality altogether and pretend things are how they want them to be. To sum up: focus on the means and let the ends be organic and real. I got great advice from some people I respect a lot about how this applies to parenting. Love is not setting an expectation that your child will follow your script. It is putting effort into guidance and training and then letting them travel their own path. For spouses, love is not kindness and sacrifice pending perfect adherence to an expectation. Love is action with the other person in mind. For children of God, love is not submission, pending the God of the universe gives us what we want. It is dedication to follow a path and have faith in His sovereignty and goodness, even when it doesn’t turn out how we planned--even when we don’t have answers. And now, dear reader, this is the encouragement for the week (for you and for me). Let the outcomes manage themselves. Love is made perfect by its continual existence in an imperfect world. When I love only the results I planned I keep my love limited. But when I commit to serve what I cannot control—love has limitless opportunity to expand beyond my reach. This week I will manage what I should manage, and, in love, let the rest go. If you are not a subscriber, and you want to be, click subscribe and enter your email to get a weekly update. A share is always appreciated. SUBSCRIBE
A post on joy 4:48 PM Tuesday October 1, 2019 I currently have 31 applications on my phone. I've slept for 13 hours so far this week and watched approximately 10 hours of TV (not a fun confession). It is Tuesday Oct. 1, 2019 and it is 88 degrees, an unseasonably warm temperature. The Cubs did not make the playoffs. I follow the sun on my morning commutes, going due east 27.3 miles to work for 42 minutes. My commute home will be the same distance in the opposite direction and likely take the same amount of time. I worked 8 hours and 4 minutes with a 27-minute lunch. I wrote 7 notes, including this one. 2 pages in a journal and the remainder in applications. I read 2 chapters of the new testament, 14 pages of Homer's Odyssey, 2 essays by Giamatti, 5 entries in A Baseball Fan's Bucketlist, 2 articles about Mitch Trubisky and one about Joe Maddon. The Cubs did not make the playoffs. I listened to music for five hours, a sermon for 35 minutes, other people talk for 90 minutes, and spoke for about 70 minutes. I sat outside for 43 minutes and have walked 1 mile and climbed 2 flights of stairs. I’ve eaten 2 meals, roughly 1800 calories, had two 8 oz cups of black coffee, six 16oz mugs of water, and I feel hungry. I checked my email 17 times. My text messages 12 times. My Instagram twice. My Facebook Messenger 5 times. My maps once. Twitter once. Snapchat once. Pinterest twice, banking apps twice, my ESPN Fantasy Sports App once, and the weather app once—so I could write this post. I don’t like the weather app. I am wearing the pants I bought with my wedding suit, a dress shirt and tie purchased as a gift for me last birthday/Christmas, an Enso ring from Amazon, shoes purchased as a gift when I was 20 and resoled by a cobbler last year. I wore these shoes on my wedding day. My belt is from a liquidation sale at Joseph A. Bank. I went with my brothers. My face was hot the whole time because I thought I was going to miss a great deal. The savings were unreasonable. I ended up with six dress shirts and a belt for about $30. I've thrown out the shirts slowly over the last three years. They fit weird. I know why they were closing the store. The belt is still good, and it was only $8, but I have to wear it on the last loop. The Cubs did not make the playoffs. I have 9 pieces of plastic in a wallet I got when I was 17, $0 in cash and a card from Code Names that my brother returned to me a few months ago. His son had dumped out the box when we were at their house visiting and it slid under the couch. I miss my brother. I'm carrying my soft cooler lunch box made by Lifewit (thank you Amazon), a flash drive, a book gifted to me by another brother, and a journal made in South Africa (a gift from another brother. He started school this week.) The Cubs did not make the playoffs. There are 162 games in a baseball season. I think baseball is the reason, “the dog days of summer” is a thing. 162 games can be mundane. But when it comes down to the end it’s easy to see why each of them mattered. The muffed grounder on June 7; the poor choice in the weight room; the 110th pitch and subsequent tweaked nerve; the small lapse in focus; the poor judgement; the mass of mistakes leading to, just short. They say the Devil’s in the details and baseball’s a game of inches, and I wonder if Hendricks is choking the ball a little more this year, and what made such a dramatic difference in Yelich’s power, and why Kimbrel left the ball over the plate, and what would have happened if Javy’s hands were an inch higher on his slide. But there are too many variables. Too many things to review, so all I’ll say is maybe next year, and “Maddon’s time is up” and I’ll wait patiently for next spring. The thing about baseball, like Giamatti says, is “It is designed to break your heart.” What a potent word, “designed”. It was engineered for emotion—Created for feeling. It’s what we love about baseball, and what we love about life. We obsess about the numbers, the boundaries, the strike zone, the foul line, the 90 feet between happiness and despair. The 60 feet six inches of tension hanging between a hitter and a pitcher and the split-second reaction time that differentiates a career in the big leagues and a double-a dropout. It was designed, a quantitative, orderly verb. To break your heart. A complicated and emotional prepositional phrase. Like, made for more. Or, hardwired for connection. All the data, all the engineering, it draws itself to a moment where players stand and move habitually, and fans watch or listen intently. And we feel the sinking feeling and wonder why we care so much, why it matters so much. It’s just a game. It's a construct and a rule. They had the better numbers. It was just wins and losses. It was just data points. And so are we. We are data points. I am, and you are. We are a mass of arm angles, load patterns, habits, roles, morals, decisions and thoughts moving base to base and living pitch by pitch. My nuanced patterns and routines turn habits to idiosyncrasies, to necessities, until something breaks down and I try something different. Advertisers study me, employers’ study me, churches study me, other humans study me. It is an existential necessity. I am always observed and assessed. They observe my stat-line, my composition, and they craft a response. They’ll assess my next move. 60% sliders, 35% fastballs, 5% changeups. 61% strikes. 42% in the zone. 90% middle away. I’ll touch the hat, wipe the hand, dangle the arm, shake the wrist, set, load, release. And then let it all go. If you have arrived here, dear reader, my encouragement to you this week is to be a human. You are doing excellently so far. “Everyday do something that won’t compute.” ~Wendell Berry If you are not a subscriber, and you want to be, click subscribe and enter your email to get a weekly update. A share is always appreciated. SUBSCRIBE
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I'm a Hoosier. I like the outdoors. Taxes are my job. I write for a living. This Blog
Writing my way to an adult life of minimalism, sustainability, and joy rooted in Truth. I'm learning, unlearning, and relearning.
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