Here is for taking my own advice

It’s been eleven days since my last post, that was some great (slacking) rest. Read my last post if you want more advice on guilt free, sanctioned rest. Now I’m really recharged and ready to write some nuggets or tidbits or maybe even rivers of flowing wisdom…….tomorrow.

Heavenly Rest

Whether or not you believe in the Judeo-Christian God, there is something to learn from Yahweh/Jehovah about rest. In Genesis, Yahweh gets creative and does some amazing things with light, firmament, dirt and water. In Earth’s new strata, He places vegetation and critters to inhabit them. God of course doesn’t tire but this is what He did after all of the sculpting and painting of creation. He rested. Why? He wanted to show his most beloved critters that rest is important.

We have so much to tend to in our lives but we must learn to rest. Here is an analogy that makes sense. If your car has a flat tire, you don’t keep driving because you absolutely have to get somewhere. You stop and attend to the tire so that you can efficiently continue on to your destination. Our frenetic lives can have us operating on worn-out parts. As we need to fix a flat tire, we need to rest to make our efforts most effective. Don’t feel guilty if you feel the need to rest, because you do need to rest. If the biblical creator of the Universe rested, I would say that gives you guilt-free license to kick your feet up to recharge.

Breathe

Here is a tip for a potentially stressful day. Breathe. We rarely, if ever, think about our breathing. Be intentional about your breathing today. Take three deep breaths whenever you think about it. Three deep breaths give your entire body fresh, new oxygen. It really reduces that gnawing stress.

Chasing papers

In college I used to wait until the night before a paper was due to actually start the paper. It sounds familiar doesn’t it? I even used the excuse that I wrote better papers with this method. My theory was that the intense pressure somehow extracted more creativity, critical thinking, insight….. What it did was just create more stress. Yes, I usually turned in “A” papers but that was not a justification for my procrastination.

I’m still learning how to prioritize, I haven’t arrived yet but what I have found is that when I do get things done in a timely matter, not only do I perform better but I have less stress and pressure. Nobody has ever had a heart attack or taken medication because they have good time management. Life is crazy enough, let’s get our priorities in order, we can reduce stress. By the way, how are your taxes coming? Good news, you have one more day to not procrastinate. Remember, don’t let discouragement prevent you from making better choices right now.

BlogCatalog

I just listed my little corner of the blogosphere on BlogCatalog. It’s a great site to browse for your blog flavor of the day. Take a look, learn some things.

Ahhh, Chaos.

This was a particularly hectic weekend for our family. I have two sons ages three and six so when I say “particularly hectic,” it means something. My oldest son had his sixth birthday and accompanying thematic birthday party on Saturday. Why we did this to ourselves, the thematic party, I know not. The concept is fun and a great outlet for creativity but the after effects of the cleanup, the exhaustion, the repainting of walls and the refinishing of furniture take the entire following three weeks to recuperate from.

I’m not one to underdo a task. I consider myself the construction manager and lead carpenter when my wife and I throw a party for our boys. The local building department gets involved and when we are done it looks like a functional movie set. We added the extra weight this year of giving in to the request for an “army party.” Now imagine ten or so little guys hopped up on sugar doing basic training type maneuvers while accurately making the sound of every type of explosive and artillery shell used since the first World War. Oh and the water balloon grenades mixed with the infirmary activity where we had the little soldiers use teamwork to help a fellow wounded soldier by wrapping him up in bandages (toilet paper.) What a colossal mess. I know, you’re thinking “well you did do it to yourselves.”

Sunday, of course, was Easter. This holy day is very significant to my family, it’s true purpose represents sacrifice, redemption and grace much better than any chocolate laying Easter Bunny could ever do. Easter is also a difficult day for many people because simply, it’s a day where we overeat to make it worth corralling ourselves around difficult family members. Good family relationships are crucial to a well balanced, joy filled life. Unfortunately, some family members can be more like a rock tied around your ankle rather than the rock of support and stability they should be. We were blessed, we had a great Easter Sunday with encouraging fellowship and only a slight bit of overeating. OK, maybe a little more than a slight bit.

I have to remind myself not to get too discouraged when I feel so exhausted and spent. Our Easter holiday was a great day but even great days are draining. Our bodies do not differentiate types of stress and stress makes us tired. My wife and I had such great fulfillment and joy planning and developing my son’s birthday party, it was a labor of love but it was stressful. We are exhausted. The goal is in choosing which stress we allow in our lives. Beneficial stress, like thematic birthday parties, is equally as tiring as negative stress, like making bad decisions and dealing with the consequences, but the return on investment is exponentially greater with beneficial stress. Negative stress is a lot like those little bunnies that have regretfully become the icon of Easter, it multiplies and creates more negative stress. The good stress is a byproduct of building relationships, blessing your kids and spouse, working hard for a goal and so many other positive “labors of love” and positive gain. I also need to remember to rest, that’s important as well and I have a hard time with that one. I guess I need to make better decisions when it comes to rest but I’ll figure it out.

Six Years of Grace

It wasn’t the perfect reason to start having kids but it was a good enough reason. Six years ago my father-in-law took in and released his last breath as we watched and cried. He had developed a rare form of brain cancer that took him sooner than we had anticipated, much sooner. The doctors told us he had two years to live and this was the catalyst for my wife and myself to have our first child.

We had great plans to save the world from its chains and pains. We would travel and save souls. We would drink in the good and pour out the bad. We would make some kind of difference, maybe. Well, ten years had passed and much of what we did was on a local or regional level with not as much change as we would have desired and we were ok with that. Truthfully, we were just barely ok with that and that was after processing the frustrations and disappointments we had waded through. Then, there we were, ten years into our marriage and not only were our ideals somewhat ground to powder but we were missing something. The icons of lineage building and virility were absent. We had no children. After a decade of halfheartedly trying to do something epic we were fruitless.

Enter cancer, evil, despised cancer. We were shocked that my wife’s father had this horrid disease. We were all victims; cancer was eating away at all of us. Then a small spark appeared. My wife had decided it was time to start our offering to the extension of the family name, to add a branch to the family tree. Cancer was killing her father but no entity was going to take away the moment when he was to see his little girl’s first child.

Our son was born on April 11th 2003, two weeks before his grandpa would die. The moment happened and grandpa gazed at his grandson and looked at us with approval. He couldn’t speak, he could barely move his head but the moment was more than imperfect words could define. It was epic and words may have just devalued the experience, although we would have given almost anything to hear grandpa’s wit one last time.

Parenting is the hardest thing I have ever done. I am so very imperfect as a father but strangely enough, I wouldn’t ever know that by the way my sons want to be around me, how they desire to play with me (and on me) and how they look at me with those amazing deep brown eyes. I adore my sons. My sons adore me, in all of my imperfection and not because I deserve adoration. This is grace. Happy birthday buddy, I love you.

Testing 1..2..3..Is this thing on?

Simply put, life is enigmatic and I think that that is the way life should be, mysterious, unfathomable and rather mystical. Sure it’s great when we figure things out and define something but sometimes equally as great is when we realize we were wrong in our definition and figuring. Mystery is motivating, our weakness is inspiring and our efforts are noble on occasion. Life and death are so abstruse that, for the most part it’s simple, we just can’t understand it all. The good news is that we don’t have to understand it all. Don’t misunderstand me here, I’m not advocating thrusting our heads into the sand and adhering to a “flat earth” sensibility. We should pursue how it all works, we just shouldn’t perceive ourselves as ineffective and be self defeating because we don’t have it all figured out.

“What is this guy saying”, you ask? Well, the theme of this blog is to navigate through our “stuff” or difficulties and live better and simpler lives. That is a vast set of parameters and that is good because it gives us much to work with. We start from square one by trying to define who we are, the good, the bad and the ugly. Then we start moving forward, one step at a time, not necessarily knowing where we are going or what it’s going to look like. Because remember, no one person has it all figured out. But I do know one thing, improvement is inevitable when we give ourselves a little slack, work very hard, keep trying and realize that we can’t go at it alone in this crazy, enigmatic world.

What comprises a better and simpler life? We can define that as we go because it just might change for you and not all components are a “one size fits all” definition. One more thing, as vast as the aforementioned parameters are, they are bookmarked by absolute truth. Actually, one more thing. Absolutely no comments about my posts sounding like The Sphinx from Mystery Men. Go see the movie if you didn’t get that…It’s a brilliant movie.