I Have Started

I have begun work on the next installment of the Spiritual Warfare series. It will be about being properly dressed for battle. There is a good bit of scriptural research to do on the subject, and it will probably take me a few days to process it all. It feels good to be working towards writing again. It has been a long hiatus.

This weekend I will be going to the One Thing conference at King's Park International Church in Durham, NC. I have been looking forward to going since I first heard about it months ago. It is hard to believe that November is already here.

I don't know what I am looking forward to specifically. I think that I am hoping for a supercharge - a shot of nitro - to propel me into a deeper pursuit of the Lord than I am experiencing right now. That is not to say that I am not pursuing Him, but it seems that my pursuit is lacking something important, and I hope to find some keys to help me kick it up a notch or four. I'm not hungry enough for Him right now. I need to be desperate for more.

I was so challenged by the One Thing '08 conference that I watched last December. Today I found two of the sermons that challenged me most online. The first was by Corey Russell. I watched it about once a week when they had it on their website during and right after the conference. I was really bummed when the International House Of Prayer took it off their website. But I was thrilled when I discovered it online today.

Corey Russell - The Call To Consecration

The other sermon was by Lou Engle and was just as powerful.

Lou Engle - Our Nazirite Calling

So I am hoping to hear at least one of these fellows at the conference this weekend. It is going to be great, but I wonder if I am as well prepared as I should be to receive from this conference. May the Lord meet us all there.

Lately I have been teaming up with a good friend to do some web design. It has been good, but challenging. I suppose that anytime you try to start something there is a decent amount of inertia to overcome. Unfortunately for us the resistance may have cost us some opportunities, but hopefully it will show us the things that we need to work on and will propel us to greater excellence. In fact, I need to keep this short tonight so that I can do some work on one of our contracts before my girlfriend calls.

It has been an interesting season. There is a lot in transition, and I feel to my core that some big changes are in the works - good changes! I felt when I turned 40 a few weeks ago that it was significant in a good way - that there was a coming out of the wilderness after a long time. I'd be lying if I told you that I am not looking forward to enjoying the fruits of the Promised Land. They have been a long time in coming. Now to figure out how to walk this out.

But even there my good friend, Bruce, has had a good word, quoting the passage in Joshua where the people are admonished, "When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God (representing God's presence and His glory), and the priests, who are Levites, carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before.... Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you."

That's what I am interested in - seeing the Lord do amazing things among us. But clearly the cost is a consecrated life. Am I willing to dedicate my life to His call that I may see Him do amazing things? I hope so. I have spent much time in His crucible. It would be a shame to become complacent after all of that. May the Lord continue to push all of us further in our pursuit of Him.

Coming Soon...

I've begun thinking about the next installment in the Spiritual Warfare series. I think that it is going to be about grace. The trick is going to be figuring out how to unravel this very difficult concept. It is more abstract than the concepts that I have tackled so far and is something that I have been pondering for almost 20 years.

Yesterday I managed to write my first query letter and submit my first article for publication. I hope that I'll get a positive response to it. I should know something by the end of June.

I hope to head over to the garden for a little while this afternoon. I have some plants to set out and I will probably also tie up the tomatoes again. I don't think that I'll do any heavy work today because I am playing guitar tomorrow. I'm visiting a friend's church in the Charlotte area.

Now I am going to take a little time and practice guitar and figure out what I will be singing for tomorrow. I hope that you are all enjoying this beautiful Saturday!

The Next Installment

I have basically finished the second article in the warfare series, but it needs a little polish still. I'm going to let it sit over night and try to clean it up in the morning. However, if you can't wait and want to see it now it is available at my blog Conspiracy of Kindness.

Tomorrow I hope to go and do some work in the garden to do some of the things that still have to be done in the wake of planting. I'll try to remember to take the camera.

A New Habit?

I did something yesterday that I haven't done in ages. I wrote a real bona fide letter and mailed it. I think that I may try to develop the habit of writing at least one a week.

You never get real letters anymore. I guess that email has pretty much done away with the need for it, but it sure is a thrill to go to the mailbox and get something out that is not a bill and is not a form letter or junk mail. They are so rare they jump right out at you. You can spot one on the bottom of a stack of mail.

I love getting personal emails too. (Unfortunately the first person to ever send spam wasn't hung, drawn, and quartered. It may have prevented people from polluting that form of communication the way that the mail has been.) But I find that the whole texting revolution has cheapened e-mail. I suppose that it is understandable that folks don't really put a whole lot of effort into most of their e-mails (although I have some friends who do) there really isn't any cost associated with sending an e-mail besides time, and time is what e-mail is supposed to save.

I suppose that is the beauty of a real, bona fide letter. If you are going to spend 43 cents to mail something (or whatever the rate is now) you figure you'd better make it worth the expense. You might as well write one a couple pages long. Heck, you get a whole ounce before the rate goes up! I find that is good for about 4 standard sized pages, and if you write front and back that makes for a pretty long letter.

I like letters better than cards too. I mean, a card is better than nothing, but just barely, when all the person does is sign their name to a generic greeting card. It is nice to be thought of and nice to get something in the mail that isn't asking for (or demanding) money, but I am generally not moved. Of course you can spend an hour looking for a card that actually says what you want it to say and then pay $5 for it plus postage. That's almost as good as a letter. I'll keep a card like that, but it still isn't quite up there with a hand-written letter.

I suppose that there are some down sides to the old-school letter. It can be hard to read the handwriting. I tend to make mistakes which gets messy. And I generally like to keep a copy of what I write. This has a tendency to slow down the reply process for me to either hand write a copy or find a copy machine somewhere. Still, I think that the benefit will outweigh the cost.

So, I think that I am going to pick someone I know and write a letter to them - a good, old fashioned letter - every week. It will be a different person every week. If they write back then they'll get another one! It can be my way of spreading a little love in this impersonal, electronic world that we live in. If you want to be included and you aren't sure if I have your mailing address, you can leave your address in a comment on this post and I'll write to you. I won't publish the comment so that you don't have to worry about your information being out there for all the world to see. Let's see if we can revive letter writing!

I'm Back

Hello, friends. Sorry for the long absence. The main reason for my silence was a problem caused by WindStream. Fortunately (after about 3 weeks and much hoop jumping and much frustration) they finally got someone involved who could and did fix the problem. I didn't have internet connectivity from September 9 through September 27.

I could have posted from my parents' house, but blogging - to me - is something that I need to be in familiar surroundings to do. I need to feel like I have the luxury of time to be able to write well. Usually when I am at their house, I am busy with outside chores and computer work is pushed to the back burner. By the time I am done with outside work, I am generally ready to get a bath and go to bed, not sit and type on the computer!

Of course I am sure that many of you are perhaps wondering about the gap since I got my service back. Well, there are some reasons for that too. I have been busy transitioning things in the garden from the summer crops to the fall crops. That has taken a good bit of work. I have felt like I have been behind the 8 ball trying to keep up with everything here at the end. However, things seem to be settling down nicely. I have only 3 tomato plants left and have picked the last of the purplehull peas that I plan to pick. The okra has slowed down considerably and I only expect to get a couple more pickings from the lima beans.

My green patch is doing very nicely. I picked three nice messes of greens yesterday and there is plenty more where they came from. The collards finally seem to be taking off and my cabbage is looking good. I have rutabagas coming up and will be thinning and transplanting them when they are big enough. Hopefully, I'll be able to get some pumpkins on before the season ends. God has truly blessed my efforts this year. What a good God! It has been a great opportunity to learn and to see His hand in operation. I never dreamed when I started the garden that I would get to witness so many miracles first hand. It has been awesome.

Another reason for the delay in getting back to writing on this blog is that I have started a new private blog that is a personal prayer journal. I had hoped to write in it daily, but unfortunately, that hasn't been the case so far. It has been a very good endeavor, though. The only problem is that it takes time and we all know that time is in pretty short supply. Writing in one will often mean neglecting another.

Yet a third reason that I haven't written is that I have been avoiding politics lately like the plague. I am so sick of this unending campaigning. I am tired of the bias. I am tired of everything about it. I have already made up my mind and am sure that nothing that any of the candidates is likely to say will sway me to go in another direction. So, I have been insulating myself against that too, and as you know, much of my material is a reaction to the headlines.

God seems to be doing some interesting things in me lately. Some of it is very unconventional. I often wonder where it will lead me. I don't know if I could put a finger on anything specifically - I doubt that I would write about it even if I could - I just feel that something is going on. Something good.

I guess that the final reason is that I have just gotten out of the habit of writing. I have a goal to do 365 posts on this blog this year. I may have a little catching up to do to make up for the pitiful showing last month, but I think I can still make it. Thank you all for the inquiries and concerns about my whereabouts. I haven't been kidnapped (at least not physically) and I haven't joined the Foreign Legion. I've just been restrained, distracted, and busy. God bless you all and thank you for reading.

AWOL

Sorry, folks. I have determined that leaving home is bad for blogging. The crazy thing is that I wasn't even away from a computer - I was house-sitting for my parents - but for some reason it is just hard to blog when I'm away from home. It may have something to do with the incredibly uncomfortable chair that they have in the computer room. I can't sit on it for more than about 30 minutes before it starts getting pretty close to unbearable.

My folks went to Frederick, MD to visit my brother. They had a pretty good trip. They took along my 12-year-old nephew who was apparently not terribly impressed with most of what he saw on their forays to Gettysburg, Antietam, and DC. Sigh.... How could you be bored at any of those places?

I had actually planned to post last night, but was too wiped out. In fact, I had planned to come home last night but was too wiped out for that too - that, and I found a good baseball game on the TV last night: Orioles at Chicago. I was pulling for the O's, but like both teams so I wasn't too disappointed that they lost.

One neat thing that I saw in the game last night.... There is a guy who plays for the Orioles that was having his 30th birthday yesterday. His name is Luke Scott. (I have a cousin named Luke Scott... but I digress.) It was kind of neat and he was excited about it because his number is 30 so he was wearing the same number as his age. The commentators talked about how his number was spiritually significant to him as well. It turns out that Luke is a dedicated Christian and he was excited about turning 30 because Jesus was 30 when He began His public ministry. The broadcasters were very complimentary of Luke and his witness. I always like it when I hear a good story! He was 2 out of 4 last night too!

That being said I am back home for a while now. I have lots of things to write about so you can expect more posts to come down the pipeline soon.

Southern Writers

I have been working on Look Homeward, Angel over the past couple weeks and find myself asking the question, "Why do Southern writers seem to always write about the dregs of Southern culture?" Erskine Caldwell wins the prize (at least thus far) in making Southerners look like a bunch of inbred freaks, but Faulkner wasn't far behind him. And I have to admit, though I am held in awe by his use of language, even Wolfe spends much of his time crawling around in the slop bucket of the culture. If many people have read this stuff there is no wonder everyone thinks we are a sub-human species.

Perhaps I am sheltered, but the South that they are writing about intersects with mine almost nowhere. Sure, there is plenty enough dysfunction in my life and in the lives of many of my friends, but I guess one of the big parts of being Southern is that we don't talk about that so much. I wish that there were more Southern novelists that approached the region more like Don Williams did in his music. Perhaps I am just looking for someone who will portray the South through the eyes of a child. (Even though Thomas Wolf's main character was a child, he was a precocious one that understood more than he should have!)

I suppose that there are some that manage to write about the South that I am more familiar with. Truman Capote's story "A Christmas Memory" comes a lot closer to what I am looking for. And even though he can be critical of the South and its attitudes, Mark Twain captures some of the goodness of it too. The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter is also pretty fair in its treatment of the South and Appalachian culture.

Perhaps it is time for me to write the great American novel. I wish I had started 18 months ago. By now I might have been finished! The trick is writing something that is distinctively Southern and complimentary that still has enough of a crisis to drive the plot. I have actually been ruminating on an idea that may be robust enough to work. Now I need to do a little planning so that putting pen to paper - or in this case fingers to keyboard - won't be so daunting.

I have more practical book ideas too that would require some creative writing as well. I have started on one already, but it was put aside in the activity of real estate survival, and I haven't picked it back up. Yes, it may be time to do something with these ideas.

For the First Time Ever...

I have just begun reading Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel. I am not even 20 pages into it and I'm already hooked. Dang! This guy could write.

I am actually torn between reading for general effect and reading for full comprehension. I think that I will read it faster for the general effect. Later I can come back to it and revisit. This is a book that I believe that I can read and enjoy more than once. I can't believe that I have never been required to read Wolfe in all my years of education. Even in my Southern Writers class we read Faulkner instead - FAULKNER!

It took me years just to read Faulkner and understand him - I was afflicted with him as a senior in High School too. Why is it that people always believe the most twisted perverse things about the South? It is because of the likes of William Faulkner and Erskine Caldwell. Thank God I didn't have to read Tobacco Road. I saw it for the first time last year at the Triad Stage in Greensboro (who, by the way, do a great job with their productions) and was utterly appalled. It was the most revolting thing I have ever seen called art. Caldwell had a chip on his shoulder and the South has been paying for it since.

OK, I'm calm again. I actually can see why Faulkner's writing has been praised. He captured - at least in Absalom, Absalom, the way Southern people tell stories. I just wish that his characters hadn't been so bizarre. If you've never read Faulkner before, there is a trick to it. See, when Faulkner wrote he would often insert parenthetical ideas that could literally last for PAGES before finishing the original sentence. The effect was something like this: (Forgive me, I'm a bit out of practice. I could do it perfectly in college.)

Salisbury was (Can't you remember that time that we went down to O.O. Rufty's General store? You know that time when the radiator hose busted there on East Innes Street. There we all were trying to get that blamed thing off the truck with everyone and his brother standing around gawkin' at us. Don't you remember how Uncle Jim burned his hand on the steam? I'll never forget how they used to have the buckets of seed right there in the walkway between the display cases as you entered the door. I always thought the pink corn was neat and liked the feel of it slipping through my fingers before my dad made me put it down on account of the poison that had been put on it to keep the birds from eating it.

That store was a veritable wonderland inside. They had things in there that must have been there since the store was opened just after the Civil War. There were farm implements and notions, old toys, hardware, clothing, doo dads, and thingamabobs, tools, housewares, fertilizer and all manner of other fascinating treasure. And in the air hung a pungent, earthy smell. I guess it came from the dirt that was ground into the hard wood floors and the farm chemicals.

Of course my favorite part was the drink coolers that they had there just inside the front door - you know, the big square chests that slid open at the top and contained bottled drinks. Not the kind of drinks they have now in the plastic bottles; glass bottles with metal bottle caps that didn't twist off. There was a bottle opener right on the front of the cooler. We always drank it right there so we didn't have to pay the 10¢ bottle deposit. Somehow a drink tasted better drinking it there in the lobby of O. O. Rufty's.

Thank goodness they had that radiator hose too. We'd a been in a fix if they hadn't. We were able to get the truck fixed and back home before supper.) a lot different when I was growing up there. Everything was a lot more laid back and slower paced. Everybody knew everyone....

That was typical of most everything that I ever read of Faulkner's with the exception that the characters are fairly normal and no one is doing anything scandalous in the back room. By the time you get to the end of the sentence that started four paragraphs ago you have completely forgotten what was being said.

The secret to reading Faulkner is to read until you get to a parenthesis and then skip on down to the end of the parenthetical phrase. Read the rest of the original sentence and then go back and finish the stuff in between. Get used to doing it. You won't read far without needing to. Sometimes it seemed like he even put parentheses inside of parentheses! The thing about it, though, is that if you listen to Southerners telling a story that's generally the way they do it.

I suppose that it is a little early in my reading of the story to be extolling Wolfe over Faulkner - only 20 pages in and one of the main characters turns out to be an alcoholic. But there is something different in the portrayal so far - something different in the presentation. It is being done respectfully, I guess. It isn't the South that is making him this way. It is his own generational demons that are driving him. I am truly shocked that I am already engaged with this book. I am already empathizing with the characters. I think this is going to be a very enjoyable read.

Long Time, No Write

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted anything here. The real estate world is a pretty busy place, and I found that I just couldn't keep up being a full time agent and a closet writer. By the end of the day it was just too much - especially after a nasty bout earlier in '05 with appendicitis.

So, what have I been doing? My dad has retired from the real estate business (lucky him) and is moving on with his well earned life of freedom. That means that the business has fallen to me, and I must admit that it has proven to be more than I want to handle.

I guess when you sit down and analyze everything, and look at the core competencies of what you are doing, and you realize that you absolutely HATE doing about half of those things, that you realize that it is time for a change.

This realization, of course, begs the question, "So, what do I do now?" See that has kind of been the question since middle school. When someone asked me what I wanted to be then, I wanted to be an officer in the US military - preferably a fighter pilot. However, with pretty horrible vision, and not quite making the cut at the Air Force Academy, that dream (forgive the pun) crashed and burned, leaving me with the burning question that has haunted me since: "So, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

So far, I've pretty well just gone with the flow. Fresh out of college I went into insurance sales. Then I tried software testing. And finally I have given Real Estate a shot. I guess most of these jobs have had some good points - except for insurance. That TOTALLY sucked.

I kind of wish that I had known about career surveys and stuff like that before I went to college. Perhaps then I may have been able to pick a track that would have put me into something more like a permanent career. I have taken a couple of these surveys since I came to the decision to get out of Real Estate. And I have actually been somewhat surprised by what I found out.

It turns out that I am a bit more artistic than I had thought. I mean, you can't be a conservative AND artistic too, can you? Anyway, it has got me to thinking about some possibilities that I hadn't considered. I did look at teaching VERY briefly, but the income from that is less than I'm making now. Even with 2 months off in the summer, that is not an acceptable option. (Even though I think that the teaching part would be pretty fun.) I am considering writing though. I know it is a long shot, but what if I could write the great American novel?

I suppose that means that I need to find something to pay the bills in the meantime. I will probably go back into software testing because I enjoyed that for the most part. I guess time will tell.

So here's to all of you out there who don't know what you want to be when you grow up. I feel your pain!