Archive for category Life
The practice of the presence of God…
Posted by paulalanjones in Faith, Life on October 4, 2011
Many years ago I read a small book that had a real impact on me and changed how I viewed the Christian life, that book was ‘The Practice Of The Presence Of God‘ by Brother Lawrence, a 17th century monk. Before reading that book, and during many relapses since then, my relationship with God was like a long distance telephone call that occurred from time to time. It wasn’t until my early 20′s that I had any concept of the “presence” of God outside the biblical accounts of His glory as it appeared to the Patriarchs in blinding fashion. My reading of this book corresponded with my realization of the indwelling Spirit.
This past Sunday, Pete Wilson continued in his series ‘Shaped: Discovering your unique life with God‘ in a message entitled ‘Beyond the Surface Level’ which resurrected a memory of that little book I read some 20-odd years ago. In his message, Pete pointed out the stark contrast between how we often tend to pray and prayer that occurs in the context of God’s continual presence. When God is distant, we tend to try and invoke His hearing with formulation and intonation of our words in a chance that we can use the correct formula to get God to pay attention. In God’s presence, there is no need of formula and prayer is not a struggle.
As I considered his words, I reflected back on a time in my life when I had a clear realization of God’s continual presence in my life. During that time, my prayer life was more of an offering time, where I simple lifted things up to God while in His presence. Often my prayers consisted of fewer words and was more of simply being “before Him”. I remember having a personal practice of simply “remembering” things and people before God. Often, this was done without words. When I think about it, I can say that it was much like a young child, who has not yet mastered language, who holds something interesting in his hand and attempts to engage you by looking at the object then lifting it up to you– be it a toy, a piece of cheese or a booger. My old dog Leebie used to do something similar when she would dig up old rawhides in the yard, prance the muddy things into the house, just to show them to me before returning to the yard to burry them again– it was simply a way of her sharing what was of great interest to her at that moment, much like my prayers were.
Pete encouraged the church to practice silence and solitude this week as a way of encouraging the practice of the presence of God. It’s funny, because unless you can realize the continual presence of God you don’t really experience it– even though it is there. Brother Lawrence lived a life within the reality of God’s presence, so much so, that when his Superior would instruct him to take moments of solitude in designated prayer and meditation he would find it much less fruitful than simply living a life of continual prayer while carrying out the banality of human living. I have never known anyone who lived such a continually surrendered transcendent life as Brother Lawrence apparently had, but I have had seasons of my life where I experienced glimpses up such a living, and it was great to have this reminder to experience God’s presence in prayer. It leaves me with a fresh desire to remain in a experience where God’s presence is continual and real, in such a way that I can simply lift my hands and show Him something, without ever speaking a word.
Cynicism and Disenfranchisement – Could Ron Paul’s Libertarian world really work?
Posted by paulalanjones in General, Life, News on September 27, 2011
I consider myself a Libertarian idealist. I have not always been so, but the older I get, the more I yearn for a world that is truly free. I don’t think that I am alone in having these feelings, many people that I talk to have them as well. When my brother introduced me to Ron Paul, five years ago, I found what he said truly appealing and spot on with my personal opinions. Up until that time, I had no idea what a Libertarian was, or how my political belief system aligned with their ideals.
One of the more interesting things I find is that regardless of political affiliation, people I know who are introduced to Ron Paul (in a way more substantial that a sound bite) tend to find that some part his message resonates with them as well. But it’s funny, for every person that has something good to say about Paul, there is almost the same person who thinks that there is no way for his ideal to live in our society. Listening to Ron Paul interact with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show reminded me of how much of what Ron Paul says seems so unrealistic– and I’m a believer in the ideals!
In a seemingly unrelated conversation the other night, I was talking with friends about the future, and how previous generations thought so many things were impossible that eventually came into being in their lifetime. The question was asked, “What is it that we think is impossible that might happen in our lifetime?” The first thing that came to me was: “flying cars”. 60 years ago, the futurists imagined us in a world with flying automobiles. Then the 21st century arrived, and it is possible that we were actually further away from owning a private flying vehicle than we were in 1950.
It’s not that we don’t have the technology to build flying cars, every few years people create working prototypes. Over the last half century, human knowledge has grown at an amazingly fast rate and I wouldn’t be surprised if some study shows that many us believe that there is almost nothing (that doesn’t violate the currently known laws of physics) that is impossible for us to achieve in our lifetime. So, how long until we get those flying cars?
We don’t suffer from a lack of imagination today, we suffer from cynicism. A lot of people know that we could make flying cars right now, but those same people also know that there are many other issues preventing flying cars from becoming the replacement to our current forms of transportation. If only small fraction of the local population had a flying car, we can imagine the nightmare that might ensue. Problems with controlling where and how they fly, dealing with noise abatement and emission controls. Dealing with the consequences of one or more of them falling out of the sky during rush hour traffic… oh, and let’s not forget the whole host of new national security issues in our post 9/11 world.
When Ron Paul talks about bringing home all of our troops, when he talks about eliminating the Federal Reserve and the Department of Education, when he talks about abolishing the Federal Income Tax and moving back to a Gold Standard; when he talks about these things, I think it is no different than talking about a future with flying cars– it might be technically possible, but our gut says actually making it a real thing is seemingly impossible. But don’t take that to mean, for one second, that we don’t all want a flying car.
Libertarianism is an ideal, and like any ideal there is something inherently unlikely about it. I think that main difficulty with Libertarianism is that the ideal only works with an empowered populace that has some degree of concern and vigilance regarding the freedoms that they enjoy. When Paul talks about a Libertarian society, it always talking about some utopian society where people seem to care and are tuned in to what is going on around them– this type of society is markedly different from what most of us see around us.
In Jon Stewart’s interview with Ron Paul, he offers an observation on Paul’s desire to move the power back to the States and away from a powerful Federal government by asking, “So, oppression isn’t good from the Federal level, but if your State wants to oppress you…” to which Paul responds, “… you have more control over it if it’s local…” Paul really has a grasp of the ideal, but if you’ve involved yourself at all in local politics, you will realize that there is a massive amount of disenfranchisement within our local societies. People have no sense of power, so they surrender any influence they might have to a chanced hope that the politicians will sort things out in a way that is best for the People.
When people hear Ron Paul speak about his ideals, there is often a certain amount of resonance with his message. I think this is because we as human beings yearn to truly be free, but our cynicism regarding the goodness and trustworthiness of others and our lack of faith in the complicated systems we have created around us, combined with an inherent realization of how incredibly disenfranchised we are as a People contribute to that gut feeling that the plan Paul has for our nation is utterly impossible– not because it can’t be done, but because it simply won’t be done.
I think it would take two or three generations for people to grasp and desire a Libertarian ideal as something that is real and achievable, but I don’t think that makes Ron Paul’s message and desires any less timely and powerful, but I think in order for him to set a vision that the People can see as achievable he is going to have to adjust his message and begin to speak from a place that realizes that such a revolution would take a lifetime or two of work, but that the value of such an ideal can help chart a course to a better life.
I hope in the coming months, Paul can connect with more of our country and infect them with a vision for a future that they may not ultimately see in their lifetime, but can believe is a better path to the future. Something that is a guidepost for the future and not an ideal that we can’t possible measure up to. I hear from time to time little tid bits from Paul that acknowledges that his vision for the future has to operate in the curent world that we have created for ourselves. He needs to chart a course that helps people see through their cynicism and helps reengage them in a process that allows the People to govern themselves.
This is a future that I believe is possible, but one that will require personal and societal sacrifices as well as a strong vision of the future. Here’s to hoping that Ron Paul’s vision is truly a planted seed that grows– and to a future where I can fly my car to work.
Yeah, I have some opinions…
Posted by paulalanjones in Blogging, General, Life on August 15, 2011
I may as well admit it, I have opinions… lots and lots of opinions. In the recent past, my opinions were both and asset and a liability. Professionally, people sought my opinions… they paid me good money for them. Personally, I was a person that many people came to for advice on relationships, issues of faith and life in general. I think I got that from my dad, who was a natural problem-solver.
Sometime in the last five years, the negative side of my opinions caused some push back in my life. I had allowed my opinions to be a dream or joy killer. I had reached a place with my thoughts that I coldly offered what I thought to others and it had begun to have negative effects. I frequently heard phrases like, “you’re always so negative,” “you think you know everything,” or questions like, “why do you always need to criticize things.” I started realizing that my personal opinion had some negative issues.
One of the things that I realized about my opinions was that I tended to state things as facts. I think I learned how to do that from my dad. As kid, we thought my dad knew everything. While in fact, he did know a lot, it wasn’t until my dad began to develop dementia that I understood that my dad didn’t really know as much as you might believe. You see, my dad was a B.S. champion. He knew enough facts and had enough emotional intelligence to provide and answer to almost any question. Often, he would be right, but not because he knew something as fact, often he was making something up and simply stating his best-guess as fact– and for the most part, most people didn’t know the difference.
I had adopted my dad’s technique and it wasn’t until my dad’s dementia began to erode his cognitive process that it became clear to me. My dad’s illness caused some really odd things to happen. When people would ask him why he did something, he didn’t have a good answer he would start saying, “I don’t know.” Most of my family knew at that point something was wrong with him. The funny thing was that I had a completely different take on things. While most of my family was distracted with his behavior, I became acutely aware that his storytelling abilities were broken.
You see, my dad always did weird things, but he always had good excuses and stories about them. He could cover things up with B.S.– with his mind going, his ability to “know” things disappeared. It was after reflection on this that I ever really knew how much of my dad’s ability to “know” things was tied to his ability to make things up. It should be said though, that my dad was a very intelligent man and that on his good days, his best guess was as good as anyone else’s knowing– that is why everyone I’ve ever known trusted his opinions without reservation– without ever suspecting his opinons were based on educated guesses rather than actual knowledge.
I realized that much of what I stated as fact was actually hypothesis stated with certainty and while it may have been reasoned and possibly even a good guess, it wasn’t truth or fact per se. So, in my personal battle to be more agreeable and less of a joy/dream killer I began to qualify everything I said. I changed the way I worded things and started prefacing everything with, “I think” or “in my opinion.” With the deliberate removal of certainty I added a deliberate effort of not offering my opinion unless I was asked for it. On the positive side, my relationships began to improve and I was beginning to seem like much less of a debbie downer or someone constantly poised to debate, but I found something else started happening as well– people stopped seeking my opinion on things.
It was one of the oddest experiences of my life. Since I was a teenager, people came to me seeking counsel. People sought out my opinion on many different things both practical and personal. It seemed that while I was no longer as offensive with my opinions, they weren’t a highly regarded when hedged with “well, it might/could be…” or “I think…” I leaned quickly that people need some sort of certainty in their life and gather a lot of courage and support from someone they trust speaking definitively about something. It was odd that I had become more agreeable and less opinionated at the same time that people around me became less interested in what I thought.
So, it’s been about four years since I changed the way I spoke to others about what I think and while I love that I don’t bum them out so much, I hate not saying what I feel needs to be said. Enter some crazy political silliness and a handful of personal issues and I have suddenly found that opinion is raging inside of me. I see flashes of it and it explodes out of me. I fear something important about my personality has been repressed in all of this. However, my opinions have been allowed to grow and live in the recesses of my mind, unchecked by reality, so they have grown a little wild.
But I am convinced that I can’t keep them chained any longer… they must come out. So, this is your fair warning… be prepared for my opinion to be let off the chain now and again. I know it has made occasional appearances, but I think it might be coming out again for good and I may just let it be a little primitive. I don’t think that I am going to check my opinion with qualifiers and it is likely that I will state what I think as fact. If you don’t agree with me, don’t wilt, let me know what you think. Let’s live with a free enterprise of ideas and thought where we can learn from each other– speak up!
How much of what you state as fact is known and how much is best-guess?
Leaving things unfinished…
Posted by paulalanjones in General, Life on June 17, 2011
I am sitting in the Dallas/FW airport with Nashville, and a dozen unfinished projects, hundreds of miles behind me. Beginning this weekend I am on a two week unscripted road trip with my old buddy Avery which has no destination, for certain, other than as close as we can legally get to Area 51.
This trip is about checking out and enjoying something without deadlines, obligations or restrictions. This trip is about recovering that part of ourselves that is spontaneous and full of wonder.
I look forward to many evenings under desert star-filled skies, where I can take a break from all of my failures and allow myself to be filled with wonder once again.
How long has it been since you had a vacation that wasn’t full of schedules and obligations?
Searching for my MacGuffin…
Posted by paulalanjones in Faith, General, Life on June 13, 2011
A MacGuffin is a plot element that catches the viewers’ attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction. The MacGuffin is common in films, especially thrillers. Usually, though not always, the MacGuffin is the central focus of the film in the first act, and then declines in importance as the struggles and motivations of characters play out. It may come back into play at the climax of the story, but sometimes the MacGuffin is actually forgotten by the end of the film.
Somewhere in my 20′s I lost any sense of where I was going or what I was doing in life. I eventually recovered from that experience but the same thing happens again every few years until I figure out what I want to “go for” in life. It didn’t occur to me until recently that my constant need for something new to be interested in or curious about is kindof like creating a MacGuffin for the story of my life. You may never have heard the word MacGuffin before, but if you watch movies, you’ve seen them over and over again. The most famous MacGuffin is probably the Maltese Falcon.
Alfred Hitchcock is credited with making the term popular and lately it seems to be George Lucas’s constant search when penning new scripts for Indiana Jones. Usually, it has to be interesting enough to get you on board with the story,to set the protagonist in motion and to help establish the antagonist. The funny thing about it is that the MacGuffin is ultimately nothing. You could easily swap it out for another object and while it may not seem as interesting (some crystal alien skull or something) it wouldn’t change the major beats of the film or alter the changes experienced by the main character. The only thing it has to be, is something that somebody wants enough to do almost everything for.
Think about how often that works out in our lives. What is it that you are working for or pursuing after? Odds are, when you get to the end of your life, you will discover that much of your pursuits were the work of some sort of personal MacGuffin and that in the end obtaining what you have pursued has almost no value compared to the experiences that you had and the relationships with others you formed along the way. Many people experience this with careers or personal dreams. I think just about anything that can be acquired is a MacGuffin, be it a big house or the perfect pair of jeans.
Do you think Michael Jordan feels fulfilled having achieved what he did in basketball? I bet to this day, he is searching for or pursuing after another MacGuffin, because nothing is worse than a talented and capable person without a sense of purpose or goal. This is why I am searching for my MacGuffin. I know I am probably not created to achieve anything specific; however, I know I am created to love, serve and minister to others. I know this because regardless of what I have done or accomplished in my life, those things are the only thing that offer me a sense of value or make me feel alive.
The problem right now is that I am stagnant. I haven’t had a good MacGuffin for a long time and that has made me very unhappy. While MacGuffins have ultimately of little value in them self, they are the catalyst for action. They are a solid misdirection that causes you to bump into things you may not normally bump into, therefore, they are absolutely critical for you to experience the higher things in life. For fifteen years I was part of a church that was diligent to call a MacGuffin and MacGuffin and remind you how worthless they are in themselves in hopes of calling you to focus on the “higher” and more heavenly things.
I don’t know how many people in that church can live a life with their desires and passions castrated, but for a creative person like myself it was a pure soul killer. Some members don’t let the teachings in the church limit them, they pursue their dreams and chase unflinchingly after the brass ring, never seemingly feeling guilty about it– I guess they are just wired that way. I’m so much of a people pleaser , a legalist and a cynic that I spent man years being dutiful and faithful while my insides raged and bitterness turned to persistence as I practiced a religion out of pure spite of those who expected me to fail at it. As it turns out, failing became the best thing that happened to me; however, my soul remains wounded and I find it difficult to have any personal desire or passion that could ever be considered “worldly” or “low” so jobs, things and ideas are almost entirely out as possible MacGuffins for me because there is little I still value in them besides what they help provide practically.
So, here I sit, with a great story to tell and nothing good enough to motivate the main character into action. So, just like like George Lucas, I need a good MacGuffin to finish my story. What’s your MacGuffin? What is it that you desire, right now, that you are willing to do just about anything for?
If my life were a movie, the trailer would be AWESOME…
Posted by paulalanjones in Blogging, Faith, General, Life on January 22, 2011
If I was to make a movie about my life, the trailer would contain all of the real good stuff. It would probably be a coming of age story about a child who didn’t fit in, who overcame challenges and had grand adventures. I would put in all the good parts. Even the bad parts of my life would be used, but only to build tension, to set up the payoff. Like the time I had an awesome, high paying job that positively robbed me of joy and how that drove me to change. All the bad stuff would be put on display, so, that it can set up the big spectacle pieces. It would have parts of my experience in the Desert Storm and my trips the Kenya and Japan. It would show my struggle to feel alive and possibly even my struggles with my faith. It would probably end with you wanting to know more and wanting to know how it turns out. In 30 seconds, it would hopefully make you concerned for my well-being and concerned for my future.
But if you know anything about movies, you probably know that trailers are a poor indicator of the quality, vibe or even the content of the actual movie. One thing that I am pretty sure of, is that while my awesome trailer might get your butts in the seat on opening weekend, my Rotten Tomatoes score would be positively rotten. You see, just like most studio films, I would give you all the good stuff from the movie.; all the stuff that is interesting and compelling. However, the actual movie wouldn’t contain the real action, adventure, or even the compelling coming-of-age story you were sold. What you would get, would be a boring indie drama full of heady dialog, filled with plot holes, which moved as such a glacial pace that even the movie Solaris would seem like an action/adventure film. It might be so poorly acted that you aren’t sure if it is truly a bad film or some brilliant awkward comedy. Whatever it is, it won’t be what you expected.
Recently, I started thinking about how I edit the trailer of my life, how I shape the presentation of my story to make it interesting to others. I don’t think this is unusual, I’m pretty sure that we all do this to some extent. However, what I started to realize is how often I get to know someone through their own trailer. My relationships are managed at such a level, rarely committing the time and energy to watch the multipart epics that comprise real lives. Often our jealousy of others is based on the incomplete picture we get from their trailer. Often we imagine how much better our own personal story would be if we had the same sources to cut from. How much better would my movie be if I had that attractive lead actor in it that played opposite me? If you watched the whole movie, you might find that actor couldn’t act and actually makes the movie worse. In the trailer, however, they flash the winning smile and display the charm that is easy to manipulate in short snippets.
I once read that the most critical element to any successful movie is action, heck, that is why they are called “move-ees” in the first place. That is why a director usually begins the capturing of a scene with the command, “action.” I was once told that the best movies can be watched with the sound off and still be interesting, because the bulk of what makes what something work on screen is the movement involved. The problem with my life as a movie, is that is involves a lot of sitting around talking– or even worse, sitting around thinking. Such action never makes for something worth watching.
But my life isn’t all sitting around, I have had those “moments” in my life where I actually did things. The most interesting and exciting things are those that make my trailer. The biggest problem lately is that those moments are getting really dated, and are getting old. I’ve been realizing lately that my life needs better material to work with. My script needs much improving. I need to alter those scenes where I talk about life and turn them into scenes that actually demonstrate living it. I don’t know how much time I have to tell a better story, but there is no better time than today to create some new and compiling material.
This next chapter in my life I want to be more like adapting a book to film, where the people who know the whole story complain that the 3 part epic misses too many interesting details and that the 60 second trailer doesn’t do the movie justice. Such a story can’t be told sitting on my couch in front of my computer, so it only makes sense that I stop right now and get back to living.
How about you, is the movie trailer of your life better than the actual movie? There is still time to change it. Ready? Action.
I resolve…
Posted by paulalanjones in Life on January 1, 2011
Well, it’s 2011 and I don’t feel different at all. 2010 was a crazy year and full of many ups and downs as well as many new any interesting experiences. Early in December I started getting reflective and thinking back over the year, hoping to distill from it some healthy and productive direction for 2011. Let me walk you trough some of the bigger events this year.
In March of last year, I got married. It has been a really up and down year for Kim and I, something that underlined the thought that getting married for the first time when you are older is really difficult. The older you get, the more entrenched you get in your ways and the more difficult it is to surrender yourself for another. I think being older helped me realize how selfish I am sooner, as the more set you are in your ways, the more easily it is to see where you fail to compromise. 2011 holds more challenges, as I learn to love my wife more than I love myself.
In May of 2010, I turned 40. This was hardly a blip on my radar as getting older has never bothered me. When I was ten years old, I dreamed of being an old man with a long grey beard, full of wisdom. While my dream of getting old will eventually come true, I am afraid that life has a funny way of pulling pranks on dreams– as it turns out, I can’t hardly grow a beard, and it appears that the older I get, the less I know. Life is funny some times.
In July of 2010, Kim and I were making great and regular progress with exercise. We had begun to walk at least once a day and I was already mixing the walking with short bouts of jogging. I thought we were poised to make some good progress on our waistlines when something happened. For Kim’s 3rd annual 37th birthday, I thought I would surprise her with a blast from her youth. She grew up on roller skates and I thought she would love the opportunity to relive her youth, so I took her to a roller rink.
Well, she loved it. It took us a little while to remember how to do it, but soon we were zooming around the rink. Being older, we became acutely aware of how differently our bodies worked and even though our minds had us thinking we could do things, our bodies failed to execute. At no time was this more apparent then when, I a burst of confidence, I uttered the phrase, “I’m going to try and advanced maneuver.” Without the gory details, I will simply say, I broke myself. I had torn or badly strained ligaments in both knees and before the day was over I was not able to walk. It took me months to recover– something that broke our pattern of exercise.
Messing up both of my knees almost prevented me from making my first trip to Las Vegas. Earlier in the year, my friend Josh had gotten me added on to a video project for the label Big Machine shooting concert video for Justin Moore and Steel Magnolia in Detroit. In August Josh and I were asked to go to Las Vegas to shoot behind the scenes video for Rascal Flatts, and having busted knees almost prevented that from happening. Luckily, I was able to manage the pain and had a real blast.
This year I worked a lot more as a camera operator, something I haven’t enjoyed much in the past, but found, as I gained more confidence, I really enjoyed. Additional projects with Big Machine and others gave me some fun projects to work on and help me focus more on shooting.
Toward the end of the summer, Kim and I began connected more with a homeless feeding ministry and have over the last 3 months become more and more involved with them. Both Kim and I have a heart for serving others, so, it was good that we could find something like this that we could pour some of energy into. Going into it, Kim and I explored our desire to let the opportunity help us connect with people, something that began to happen the first time we went to help out at a feeding.
The first time we showed up, we discovered that there was plenty of help serving the food, so when we asked what we could do to help, we were told, “talk to them.” Well, I am never really good at striking up conversations, and when speaking with homeless people, the perfunctory “what do you for a living?” doesn’t get the conversation started. Lucky for me, I only had a minute or so of awkward standing around that Kim had struck up a conversation. I tagged along with her and jumped in. We sat and talked with a man who had no arms. He would eat by balancing a plate filled with food on the nub of his left arm. He told us stories about being arrested in small southern towns and running drugs from Florida. Between sentences, he would dive into the plate head first, using his chin to spin the plate into position for the next bite.
The conversation ended when the plate became unbalanced and the remains of his plate spilled. We sprung to get him more food and to clean up what was on the ground, but I think he was embarrassed and he got up and walked away. The following visit, we would meet Belinda and that would open the door for us to get to know an entire camp of homeless. That tale could probably fill an entire book, but needless to say, we learned a lot about homelessness in Nashville. Along the way, I learned a lot about myself and why and how I love. One painful thing I became aware of, is how conditional me love is.
We didn’t just make homeless friends this year. Our neighborhood began to organize and we met lots of great couples in our neighborhood. Community is something that Kim and I desire to develop around ourselves and we are learning just how much energy and intention it takes to have it. One great addition to our community has been a local home group through our church. This past Fall, a couple that moved from Florida jump started a group in our area of town (something that Kim and I failed at trying to do in 2009). Through this group, we have met more great couples which we can begin to connect with on a spiritual level as well.
I could go on and on. I think one major thing I need to acknowledge is God’s provision for us this year. Jehovah Jireh. The Lord is our Provider.
As I look forward into 2011, I look with eager anticipation for change. 2010 seemed to be a year of revelation, opening my eyes and showing me things I didn’t want to see. This is the first year that I’ve felt like I needed to make some resolutions. 2011 is to be a year with some direction. Four years ago, I read a book about Benjamin Franklin called The First American. One of the things about the book that left a major impression is something that is known as his 13 virtues. The 13 virtues was a guideline that Franklin created for himself to live by, it was a series of resolution he intended to live by. By the end of his life he felt that they were an important reason why he was able to have such an enjoyable life.
This year, I am borrowing Franklin’s 13 virtues as a framework for my New Years Resolutions:
- Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
- Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
- Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
- Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
- Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
- Industry. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
- Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
- Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
- Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
- Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
- Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
- Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
- Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
Most importantly, I think my resolution is to simply “do more and think less.” I have found that various forms of fear prevent me from achieving many things. Often I don’t do something because I am afraid I won’t do it right or be able to do it in a way that I will be happy with. This year, I resolve to do something wrong more often than I do nothing at all.
30 days of “Story”…
Posted by paulalanjones in Blogging, General, Life, Writing on August 30, 2010
What is "story"?
A frequent theme on this blog is how long it has been since I have written anything. It seems that I can go a year without writing anything then I’ll post something about intending to do better, followed by the creation of five or ten different unfinished blogs– then I just lose interest. So, to spice things up a bit, I have done what oh, so many other bloggers have done– created a 30 day writing challenge.
I have chosen to take a different path here, mostly since I am writing to for the enjoyment of a non-audience. I am not fooling myself, no one is sitting around waiting to hear what I have to say. Ultimately, the next 30 days is about me. Lately, I have been stuck in a bit of a miry place and I am in great need of stoking some internal fires in hopes of getting a handle on what direction my life should be taking.
I have quieted my mind and sought deeply for what it is that makes, me, uniquely me. I needed to find out what it is, that is deep within me, which I can burn for soul-fuel, something that is naturally produced inside me. When I reached the deepest part of myself and could see no further, I spoke to the darkness. Straining to hear something, I heard the fainest echo– like the gentle rustling of a brittle leaf as it falls from its home among the branches to find its final resting place upon the ground. A little crackle that spoke a single word– “story”.
So, 30 days this September will be dedicated to “story”. What that means, I have absolutely no idea– I guess I am about to find out.
Don’t Do That…
Posted by paulalanjones in Faith, Life on January 4, 2010
I have always been a person who learned by doing. Being of such a constitution, it is difficult to think about much else when someone says, “don’t do that.” As a child, I did many things I was told not to do– I touched hot stoves, climbed tall trees, and even zapped myself by sticking something into the electrical socket.
My propensity to do forbidden things was tempered by my gift for observation. I watched, observed and noted how things worked. I tested things in my mind, formulating my own assessment of how dangerous things were. When I was convinced things weren’t as dangerous as others said, I would do them– just to see what happened.
At the moment, I am still alive and kicking, all limbs and digits still accounted for. All those things that I was told might kill or harm me seriously, didn’t. Not that they couldn’t have, but lucky for me, I approached disobedience thoughtfully. Somewhere along the way, I stopped doing so many things I was told I shouldn’t do; perhaps it was because at some age I learned about sin and feared God’s judgment, or worse, hell. However, as I reflect on my history I am lead to believe something entirely different and nefarious was at work– the loss of wonder.
I could probably sit down and draw a graph that shows how my imagination diminished as my willingness to accept things at face value grew. It seems that society has a job to instill fear in every child, and that when a child learns enough reasons “not” to do things, they become grown up. Think about it, when was the last time you told someone to “grow up?” I am betting it was after someone did something that they should have known better than to do.
Just spend some time with a child, and you will here a phrase a lot like, “why?” or “how come?”. This perpetual asking usually results in an adult’s terse reply, “because I said so.” Eventually children stop asking; hopefully, they don’t stop wondering. I don’t think I have ever stopped wondering, but I did start just accepting. Much of this was due to the religious framework I was raised under– as asking why God or the Bible says something doesn’t always have much of an explanation, it just is.
When I stopped asking questions, I repressed the urge to know through first hand experience and simply relegated knowledge to something of the mind. By the time I was a young adult, I was convinced knowledge was solely the realm of the mind– simply gather enough facts and something can be known. Eventually, this rotted my desire to do anything and would become the beginning of a soul-rot that would contribute to bout of severe depression, anxiety and a complete loss of wonder.
When I took apart the patterns in my life that took me down the road of depression and anxiety, I discovered the young child full of imagination and wonder was locked in a box and starved of life. I was “doing” all of the right things on the outside, but I was dieing on the inside. The whole time, the child within me was screaming, “WHY?”. Five years have followed where I began to dismantle the cage of knowledge and set myself free to pursue life– only I have discovered that I am still fettered.
While my mind has experienced freedom, my body is stilled chained to some old patterns. I still spend way to much time thinking about doing things and almost no time actually doing them. I am stuck in an information gathering pattern. The “why” in me is alive, but my mind is stuck trying to understand all of the facets of something which paralyzes me from actually doing them.
I ask myself, “why?” and the only answer that I can come up with is, “fear.” This is the way of the world– to motivate with fear. I have swallowed the pill and it has made me sick. I see every major challenge that stands before me is an opportunity for failure. Because of that, I spend to much time trying to figure how not to fail. Ultimately, that approach causes me to do nothing, which is in itself failure, but a failure that isn’t as public or risky.
This behavior has to stop, because it robs others around me of the gifts that God has given me. It prevents me from living the life that I am uniquely equipped to live. Sure, it may seem to be a safer way to live, but strategic safety isn’t really what I see a life of faith being. There isn’t a single person in the Bible, that can be considered a pillar of faith, who wasn’t required to step outside of the knowledge of their mind, to step into a knowledge based on experience.
When I was a child, I zapped myself with electricity from the electric socket. I was told not to do that, but I did it anyway. It didn’t feel good, but I didn’t get electrocuted like they said I would. Today, I know the power of electricity, I know the surge you feel when it buzzes through you. I don’t recommend that anyone stick something into a light socket, because you can get electrocuted. You don’t have to touch a hot stove to learn that you can get burned– most warnings are worth heeding.
What I would warn against, is allowing the spirit of fear to join forces with the power of knowledge and create an enemy against life. If there are things that you know to be good, but are afraid to do because of the possibility of failure, I would warn you that there is an enemy at your gate, one that will rob you of life and keep you in slavery to fear. If you have lost your sense of wonder and discovered that your gift of imagination has run away, look for the enemy, the one that robs you of spontaneity, he is probably guarding your front door.
The funny thing about fear is that he is like most bullies who have little actual power and back down when you stand up to them. Fear’s strength is given to him through inaction, acting in the face of fear robs him of any strength. When in doubt, do something. Doing nothing allows fear to win.
So, what is it that is preventing you from doing something in this new year?
Crooked vs. Straight Paths… (the first “post flush”)
Posted by paulalanjones in Blogging, Faith, Filmmaking, Life, Writing on May 23, 2009
I have many, many unfinished posts that I’ve started writing and never finished. I am going to go through many of them and just flush them out into the wild. I have tried to do this before, on several occasions, but started reading a post and began feeling like it really needed to be finished before publishing it. Well, it was deja vous all over again. I started writing again on the posts and failed to finish it– again, keeping it stranded. Many of these posts have some good stuff in them even though they are not finished.
This post was to be about “crooked paths” and how it seems that God often leads people down paths that don’t seem straight. This is often contrary to our religious concept of a “straight and narrow” path that we expect to be the correct one. I wanted to look at that religious concept and compare it to many of the paths that God’s has lead his people down throughout the Bible and see if our concept matches those examples. Well, I only got to the introduction of that concept (after much rambling about my life) and never had time to do all of the verse research for my examples. Maybe one day I will get back to this, but until then, consider this my first “flush” — an unfinished post that I am publishing anyway.
Originally written February, 24 2009:
I haven’t written anything in a long time. For the past several months something deep inside me has wanted to explode out in words, but something has been repressing it. Every time I have sat down to write, something has distracted me. It’s not because I have nothing to write about, so much has been happening in my life since my last post– I just seem stuck.
Recently, I have been turning over and over in my head my direction in life. Over two years ago, I left a great paying software development job to pursue an interest in filmmaking. While I can’t consider my pursuit a failure, it has not taken the direction I expected. I had hoped to be writing and making films that spoke from the eternity in my heart, but that is not what has happened. For many different reasons, I have found myself looking to others for inspiration and motivation– something that I have not found, at least not in the way that I wanted.
Despite the last two years having taken I path that I did not expect, I do not feel that it was the wrong path for me to take. I have met many wonderful people and forged several great friendships, something, that I feel, is always worth the cost. But somehow I have a deep sense that I am off target and steering in a direction without purpose or vision. Every time I try to circle the wagons and regroup, I end up heading off again with no resolution or sense of direction.
Is filmmaking something that I need to be pursuing? The downturn in the economy makes me want to run back to the more profitable world of software, something more stable and significantly more lucrative. But each time I begin to look at software development jobs, I get a sick feeling in my stomach and a deep foreboding begins to creep into my psyche. I don’t understand that reaction, I am looking at jobs that pay 70-90k per year, how could something like that create this dark of a reaction?
I think that the answer is hidden somewhere along my current path. I have a concern about my current direction, but I have no real desire to return to path the was easy and comfortable for me. Why? I think it all has to do with the reason I took a different path in the first place. Creativity. I fear going back to a place where there is no need for that part of me that makes me feel alive. I imagined that filmmaking would put me on a path that would help me tap the deep rivers of life that run within me, helping me to plumb the depths of creativity that God placed in me, one of those important things that make me uniquely– me.
The real problem is that despite working around the industry that I had felt drawn toward, I have yet to parlet that into a deliberate exercise in creativity. For the last two years I have worked on projects that didn’t require much from me creatively. Deep down, I still want to create, I want to make art, but something more sinister is at work preventing me from doing that very thing. I don’t know if it is just pure laziness or if it is some covert fear of failure that is bridling me and holding me back from doing those things that I need to be doing.
For many years I was afraid, because I was under a dogmatic assumption that God doesn’t want his children working in the film industry– something that I later came to believe was simply imagined and not actually based in who God is and what He does in and with his people. Not something I simply conjured to make me okay with something, but based on prayer and the doors that seemed to open at just the right time, when I simply rested in God’s sovereignty and stopped living a life driven by a misguided religious fear.
I don’t say this to suggest that there are jobs that are “okayed” by God and others that aren’t– I don’t believe that God operates that way. Sometimes, based on my life experience, God will allow you to take a certain path, only to lead you to another one. There have been a number of times in my life that I have taken paths that I couldn’t have imagined that God would be okay with, but discovered that something wonderful in my life would not have been possible without it.
I don’t understand the ways of God. In the book of Isaiah there is a verse that becomes more and more true the older I get:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
—Isaiah 55:8-9
I know more now than at any other time in my life, that God doesn’t do things the way that I expect Him to. Almost all of my religious fears are based on assumptions and conclusions that I have made about God, but the more I become acquainted with the people that God used in the Bible, the more I realize that God almost always does what is unexpected and uses that people who are often the wrong type of person or someone who is on what seems to be the wrong path.
While I worry about not being creative and not living up to what God has created me for, God is simply taking me down a road that exposes my fears and doubts and constantly compels me to put off my anxieties and simply rest in Him. The more I rest in what God has already done for me, the less I worry about what I am doing wrong and simply look for the doors that are opening to me and taking that paths that appear before me. The more I trust in Him, the more I cant’ help but realize that exact path is not issue, it is the walk that matters.
There are many verses in the Bible about “paths.” Those who want condemn a certain path will pull out Matthew 7:13+14 which declares that “wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction” with the compelling that one should only take the “narrow road that leads to life.” The problem with such a misplaced criticism is that it is usually imposed on by someone who has the “narrow road” pre-defined without any understanding or experience of being “led to life”… or even more importantly, the experience of having God actually lead them down a crooked road.
Would God lead someone down a crooked road? I think that the answer is best know through experience, but certainly if He would, then there should be evidence in the Bible. I think that the first solid example of such a path would be Abraham…
Sorry that I never got around to finishing this one, certainly such a study would be one worth doing. How about digging into this and posing some of our own insights and experiences?
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