Too Far Beyond the End.

THERE'S NO ART to beginning – you just do.  Clumsily, luckily, unsure or maybe mostly confident, or maybe in full ignorance, you find yourself too far beyond the end for it to possibly still be considered the end.  That’s just how it happened for me – too far beyond the end.

Swallowed by an ending, the spotlight quick faded before the curtains could even touch closed.  It’s absolutely isolating and frightening, both at the same time.

I am a survivor, but by no means at all is my story a tale of a self-made man who overcame great odds and bootstrapped to victory.  No, mine is a story of the kind of survivor who was found just wanting the end.  

Quite simply and never forgetting, the beginning found me. I should be duly clear here: the beginning was, and is, God.  And not god as in, a god or feeling or some self-sustaining resolute strength discovered within myself fueled by an ambiguous goodness somewhere out there, I thoroughly mean the Creator, Divine Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  There is no forever blooming, never spoiling beginning outside of Him.  Understanding the psychology of grief and my breaking couldn’t nor wouldn’t get me to a new beginning.  Neither would time’s passing, which is such an empty lie to tell someone suffering the shock of loss or tragedy of life unraveling.  God in all of His regular might led me far, far beyond the end of my first wife’s death to the warmth of a day I could’ve never dreamt up in my best, undisturbed night of sleep.

Journal entries that pawed at death and ash in the form of spiraling questions, accusation and curses, discovered God’s welcome, even His beckon.  ‘Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy burdened,’ echoed determinedly in my sunken heart.  I came because He called to me and I had nowhere else to go.  My dreams, my hopes and my security – the life I built – lay ruined and left me without home.  That’s where I was found.  Those original journal entries grew into pages of words telling the grandest of stories of my finding, in the too far beyond the end.  Those pages piled into a book that I called, Earth and Sky.

Today, I celebrate the writing, but more so, the story.  It’s who I was, where I’ve been and who I’ve become.  I do hope you find the time to read my story.  It is one far greater than I could ever tell, one that will forever define me, for it was in those pages that I was truly born again.

Let's talk about writing ...oh, and a bit of a surprise

In one week's time, I'll be leading a session for Linger Conference's Creative Training day on writing and authoring a book.  If you'll be in the Dallas area, you can acquire your ticket here.

Perhaps I'll walk them through my manic ebb and flow of discipline and myriad of ideas webbing in disconcerting fashion leading to dead ends and rabbit trails.  And, of course, there's the deal with insecurity that echoed in each keystroke while writing my book, which leads me to think now why in the world am I leading this session again?  Oh right, I wrote a book.  After all, I am just beginning to break the habit of response when people who know something of my blog or book ask me just what is it that I do.  My typical response was that I was in sales or business development, which was true of my day-to-day, but not totally accurate of my dream.

While I am by no means an expert, I don't need to be.  You see, a dream must be worth more than the humdrum of day-to-day and story more than silencing fear, or insecurity or expertise or experience or excuses . . . or anything else.  Every person who's ever white knuckled the pursuit of writing a book or accomplishing a dream bigger than present, for that matter, started from a common place called the beginning.  And it is from there the book is written, the canvas painted, the song crafted and the creation is determined - at the beginning where every disqualifying reason succumbs to completion decided.

What I know about writing is that the craft matters less than the continual pursuit of story.  Tell the story - all of the story, more than should be told - and the writing will happen.  I am less convinced of the magic of authoring a book and more confident in the discipline of story and its telling.  And so, it is on this knowing that I'll give a talk and lead a creative breakout session on writing, story and authoring a book.

As a bit of a surprise, my publisher (Influence Resources) has worked tirelessly to print special pre-release copies of my book, Earth and Sky, just for Linger Conference.  This is a very limited printing of my book months before its official release date.  In fact, the only other copies going out will be to those who supported my Kickstarter campaign last year, which will be a special edition pressing including original cover design.

I'm very excited to share a bit of my story and experience both in the form of a talk and my book.  I hope you can make it out!

10 Habits to Break (and NOT live by) :: worry.

"What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted."

Worry.

We wake to find what we don’t have, what we wished for not waiting dream-freed in existence.  What to do, or say about what to think now?

We keep checking and there never seems to be enough, and so, worry becomes us.  In fact, the average person invests hours worrying about a variety of circumstances - finances, relationships, career, health, future, past, decisions made and to be made, etc.  Worry is a response to life uncontrollable or unavoidable.  Sometimes we are the cause for worry in life painted with our mistakes or irresponsibility, and figure we should do better; worry binds itself to our movements and decisions.  Other times, worry elevates in our hearts as life swings unyieldingly and the outcome seems all but favorable.

At some point along your way in life, you will worry your brains out and fret for hours, maybe even days piled on top of days, and your viewpoint will cloud a grayer hue as worry shrouds possibility of good and better.

While worry is certainly unavoidable, the holding to worry absolutely is.  Here’s something telling to consider: what is your initial reaction to adversity, large or small?

In honesty, my response echoes a hollow, worry.  There are times in my life when worry jumps from my heart.  In those times, I don’t think well.  My thoughts anemic to trust.  And so, worry leaves me floating neither in the here nor there, but somewhere in the vague middle, clothed in fear and undone in anxiety.

“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”

No matter how you make your way through life, what you do or don’t do, the opportunities you seize and the ones you let lie, all is vanity, worthless.  Years from now, no one will remember you or much of what you did, if even anything at all.  A common mistake made by those sunk in worry is the idea that life depends on effort birthed from our hearts and resolve.  That’s just not the case.  No matter the size of the life you build, it is all vanity.

We reach for what cannot be had by our own hand while seeing past simplicity.

I worry about making it to successful to appease my value and worth in this space of life I’m in.  I couldn’t possibly keep accurate count of how many hours I’ve stayed up sleepless, worrying about how my book will be received, what I will write next and if it will even matter.  Compound this worry about my career with the worry I invest in regarding my daughters and who they will soon be in life, and I span periods of months when I worry with more consistency than anything else.  One day, it simply will not matter in the grand scheme of things.

Life moves on; we must decide if we will live it or worryingly watch it pass by.

What’s larger and more founded than the fading details of our lives in years to come is right now.  If you are to quiet worry’s ringing and overcome it’s weight, you need to devalue your footprint in this life and cling to what really does have lasting weight.

Eternity will forever overshadow time, no matter its steep drops and treacherous, momentary climbs.  That is what the wisest king to grace this life, referenced as the Preacher, found at the ends of the Earth - all is vanity and meaningless in this life outside of God in eternity.

And so the striving and wriggling in days sinking as a boat swallowing water can be abandoned for a greater Knowledge.

In moments of worry, I must turn, not stare.  Worry is my friend when it causes me to pause and turn helpless to Christ who owns all I need.  I arm worry as my enemy when I sit and stare holding it as habit.