Getting Ahead

Every day I have a goal of reading some and writing some just for me. Reading and writing for work do not count since I have to do it every single day. The vast majority of what I write goes no farther that the notepad or draft file in my documents folder. Writing going no farther is fine with me - it is for me and serves to help me clarify my thoughts.

However, each year during November, I make it a goal to publish one piece of writing to my blog every single day as a part of National Blog Posting Month (there will be an icon each day). The event began in November and upon becoming corporate, spread to every month with a given theme. I continue to do November because of the origins and because it has become habit for me. Because 95% (some would argue 100%) of my writing is so unrefined, I feel the need to get an advance start on composing 30 posts. I began this week to come up with a list of topics to which I feel I can dedicate a couple hundred words. It is just a blog after all, not the New Yorker.

If I were writing New Yorker articles, I would be paid and you could pay to read my rambling there.

I managed to get a solid list of subjects on which I feel passionately enough about that I can compose four or five posts for each one. After coming up with my working list, I reviewed the scheduled posts for the last three years - some topics returned for the third year (spirituality, food, sports) and some new ones emerged. I even came up with some working titles based on documents I have in my draft file or recipes I have been experimenting with. (It pays to keep even the most inane former thoughts in reach - they may mature into something not-so-inane).

When it comes to rules, I tend to be a literalist and want to follow them as intended. By preparing over five weeks before the 30 days of posting begins, I sometimes wonder if I am cheating. I have gone over the rules (well, what I can find that constitutes rules) and all they call for is a post each day. Nothing says the post has to be composed that day. As much as I feel guilty about preparing ahead, I do not feel so guilty I am putting any of my preparation aside.

I continue to have my goal of reading and writing some each day regardless of whether it leads to a product I am willing to share. November is the condensed time when I take all those loose ideas and edit them into daily content. That is what I celebrate over those 30 days - even if it takes my 70 days to accomplish it.

Sight for the Sites

         The topic of aging has dominated much of my life lately. Just as I recovered from pulling a muscle in my back, I had to pack for a conference in Chicago. Instead of being concerned about what clothes to wear, my thoughts rested on glasses.

         Specifically – how many pair to pack.

         During the last three conferences I have attended I have had to pay the elevated rates hotels charge for everything reading glasses as I have managed to break the pair I took with me. The absence of reading glasses renders me useless at a conference. If you have not attended a conference lately, there is much reading involved. Much of that increasingly on a small screen (there is and app for that – check your smart-phone application market and you can find a conference app for almost every major conference – and small ones techy people attend).

         In addition to the conference planner/tips/etc. app for the smart phone, people still provide paper handouts of their 64 PowerPoint slides. There are also menus in unfamiliar restaurants.

         I opted for the side of caution, and after seeing how much space was available, by packing three pair – one in each bag and the pair I wore. I am determined to see my way through the entire conference with my inexpensive drug-store readers rather than the imported designer readers the hotel will sells.

The Outsider

Back in December I bought the Hunger Games series of books on my Kindle because “everyone” was raving about them. When I mentioned on Facebook that I had my next month’s reading lined up, people commented that I had my next week’s reading lined up. I could not wait to start.

Then I could not wait for it to get good.

Then I was considering, “I’ve heard this story before – Romeo and Juliet meet Lord of the Flies.”

Then I was thinking, “How much longer is this book?”

Friends and acquaintances kept assuring me it would get better. It never really did.

Now they are assuring me that the next books are better than the first. I’ve paid for the books, so I will likely read them, but my expectations have diminished greatly.

I have read young adult literature for years while teaching English and afterward as a counselor. The search for new and engaging literature of merit to include in the classroom or inspire reluctant readers kept me reading and I found much worthy of recommendation. I have to carefully consider to whom I would recommend a book about teens celebrated for killing other teens.

When I make statements that I do not care for the book, people give me a most incredulous look that makes me feel I should apologize for not relishing what is popular.

Indeed, I feel like I am living in a young adult drama.

Not only is there a story in the situation. There is an entire genre – and much of it is worth reading.

Turning Off the Television

I finally broke down and did it.

I cancelled my full cable package and kept only basic cable because it cost less to keep that than to just pay for cable Internet.

Brilliant bundling.

I decided to make the cut in a few months ago after I started coming home, turning on iTunes radio and reading from my Kindle more than turning the television on. After a bit of exploration, I discovered I can watch almost anything I want on some Internet venue – either the network website or some other streaming service – or just check my Twitter stream if I am that desperate to know what happened with some housewives.

I never am.

But I know how if I want to.

Television’s benefit to me was noise in an otherwise quiet house. After exploring the variety of iTunes radio stations and finding favorite stations in various genre of music, I decided I could do much more with a techno or classical beat than I could with the visual distraction of the television across the room.

In two months I read three novels - three more than I had read in the last 4 years.

I rediscovered the joy of staying up past my bedtime just to read another chapter – and then another. I have a few more books on my Kindle to make it through, but may be saving those until I get through the traditional paper books I have purchased in the last few years that I have not taken the time to read.

I also have a stack of professional books I want to read and reread.

First in my queue stands a book written by one of my former students. I anxiously await his take on the Gospel – and I promise to leave my red pen aside.

More Summer Reading

The second book I am reading for church this summer is Love Wins, the new book by controversial theologian Rob Bell. After hearing all the vitriolic statements made about the book before it was released, the college group at church decided they wanted to read it to see what it really says and I am going along with them as sometime facilitator.

So far the book has mostly succeeded in giving me a headache. The mix of social justice theology coupled with a reshaping of the commonly held views of Heaven and Hell provides a rich field for plowing into one's own beliefs and why exactly one has them.

While I have not completed the entire book, Bell has yet to convince me fully of his arguments, but I tend to agree with him on the idea that Christianity has been too willing to take much belief from literature and tradition without a deep delving into the Bible for the foundations. Bell demands that we look at what scripture says - from the Old Testament through the New Testament with a close look at what Christ had to say about eternal life when he had the opportunity.

The answers Christ gives are not what we as Christians have been taught to give.

Perhaps we need to read the words of Christ for ourselves a little more often.

My Sunday morning Bible Study class has been reading and discussing books from the Apocrypha. Many of our contemporary ideas about eternity originate in that period in Jewish history (though some of the books were actually compiled in post Roman times based on documents from the period of time leading up to Christ's life). I have enjoyed seeing the connections between the "new" theology in those oft rejected books appearing in Bell's work.

I look forward to reading the book through the rest of the summer, though it is somewhat challenging and I can only handle the book in doses of about a chapter a week since I read each chapter at least twice with passages within it four or even five times. I can easily spend hours reading, stopping and thinking about it, then delving into my personal library to see what else I can find to support or refute Bell's ideas.

Love Wins has become a self-imposed graduate school course in theology.

*Another benefit of the book is that I am becoming much more adept at using the notes and highlighting feature of the Kindle - and now that I can tweet from it, watch out.

Summer Reading

Each summer I consider a list of books for summer reading, polling friends, publications' recommendations, and the periodic book review on NPR. Each summer I gather my stack of books and place them on the coffee table so that I see them every time I am in my living room. Since switching to the Kindle for most of my pleasure reading, the devices sits there, plugged in, fully charged, waiting for me to pick it up and start pressing the next page button.

The stack still contains most of the books from five summers ago.

Summer is just too full of life for sitting and reading.

Most of the time.

This summer I am participating in two book studies at church and, well, since I co-leading one of them, I really have to read the book and stay a little ahead of the rest of the readers.

Both of the books are stretching my thinking about the topics at hand. For the Summer Bible Study we are going through Hard Living People & Mainstream Christians. I have always struggled in ministry with "hard living people" as I have never been comfortable in those environments, but the book is causing me to readdress my thoughts about participation in the ministries and has broadened my understanding of hard living. The scripture also gives use firm commands from the Old Testament to the New Testament that we are responsible for all people - even and especially those who fit the category Christ called "the least of these."

For a socially progressive congregation, even using the term, "least of these" or "hard living" proves challenging. Who are we, after all, to label others?

The world labels people and we are naive to ignore that. Recognizing the reality in the world does not make us of the world, but to function in it, we have to adopt an appropriate language, appropriate behaviors, and appropriate attitudes. We have to get real.

We opened the discussion with stereotypes - stereotypes we have about hard living people, and thankfully, with participation of some people who fit the definition of hard living, we were able to get an honest take on the stereotypes they have about people in the church.

The world cuts both ways.

Sometimes it is hard to see that hard living people come in all types.

The same is true of Christians.

Maybe we have more in common than we think. The study so far has led me to believe this more deeply than I have in the past. I'm looking forward to learning much more as we get farther in the book.

The book focuses on hard living people in regards to difficult home situations, substance abuse, poverty, homelessness or under-housed situations. The more deeply I delve into that, I realize that I could be considered hard living. I do not have a difficult home situation, I don't abuse substances, I am not poor or homeless.

I am hard living in that I do not stop running from waking at 5:00 a.m. to bedtime between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m. most nights. I find it very difficult to give another person the attention they deserve when I am in their presence because my mind constantly runs ahead to the next thing I need to do. Something occupies my time from the moment of waking until sleep - from mundane chores to intense work, reading, study.

I like texting and online chat because it does not require my full attention. I can do six other things on the computer while chatting with twelve people at once.

I like planning events with friends. I like the many meetings outside of work in which I participate. I like the things I do.

They bring me much joy.

I am always exhausted and more of my personal relationship are superficial than I would like.

How much more joy could I have?

The people the book defines as "hard living" have much joy in their lives too. They just take joy in different things than I enjoy.

So far in the reading and discussions, the commonalities we have far outstrip the differences.

Maybe we have more in common than we think.

New Thrills in the Bible

The Sunday School class I lead is currently reading through the Apocrypha. We had all heard of the collection of writings found in some Bibles; however, none of us had ever read them. So far we have covered the first two books and I am enthralled!

My greatest thrill so far has been in talking to seminary graduates who have never read the Apocrypha. Universally, they have responded, "Oh, yeah. I've heard of that." And yet in all their studies of Old Testament, New Testament, and Bible History, they know nothing more than that it exists.

And what a shame.

Two books down and the writing has captivated me with Hebrew storytelling and the culture of their pre-Roman world. The first two books are now known to be religious fictions written to preserve Jewish history and theology to the Diaspora following the fall of Israel. The foundations of Jewish faith are so well represented in the stories, there can be no doubt about what the Jews in that time found central in God's expectations for them.

I am excited about the next months as we examine purged verses and chapters as well as additional history in these "hidden" books.

Reading Deficit

I miss reading. For years reading was my singular pastime. Novels, short stories, poetry - the genre did not matter - the word on the page moved me to new worlds and kept my brain engaged.

As work grew busier and I began to read more professionally, my joy of reading began to diminish and I picked up fewer and fewer books for pleasure. I never really stopped buying books, but I have stopped reading them through and through. I read key passages, I scan, and sometimes I even use them in reference.

Periodically, I stack up the books in the order I imagine I will read them. The stacks sit around for a few weeks and then I find shelf space to put them away.

The fantasy returns from time to time, but the minutes in which to fulfill it seem fewer and fewer. I keep thinking the farther into my career I progress, the more freedom I would find to read, but the disillusionment grows progressively stronger.

Nevertheless, I purchased a Kindle a few months ago and the new gadget has turned me back to reading more than I have in a while. It is not quite the same as a book, but it is more handy than carrying the books and newspapers around - and my fingers do not turn black from the newsprint.

If this experiment in daily writing and the Kindle continues to inspire, perhaps I will force the time into my schedule for the written word.

Office Space!

Finally I have a functional office space in my home. Since I moved into the house two and a half years ago, my office has been the clutter/junk room. During my recent vacation, though, my office was project #1 and it has come out quite nicely.

The first step was getting four bookcases out of the room. I still have the books, but finally gone mine put away in somewhat of a logical order. On one wall, I put in a track shelving system and it made a world of difference. Being able to adjust the shelves gives me so much more usable space than the standard wall-unit bookcase – and it looks so much more orderly perched up above my new desk.

The desk made another huge difference. Despite eating up a chunk of space, it is a real desk and fits nicely in one corner with a writing and a computer space. Since I still like to compose most of what I write by hand rather than by typing, that space is so important to me. The writing space looks out a window to my front lawn – usually at the damn grackles, but still it is some kind of wildlife beside the college-age boys renting the house across the street.

I also moved in my 55 gallon aquarium and the comfy recliner that never matched any of my other furniture. So now I have soothing sounds to go along with a favorite reading space.

I have a couple boxes of books to put away somewhere yet and some scrapbook boxes to file. I make scrapfiles, not scrapbooks. It is much more exciting to open one of the boxes and rediscover a memory than to have it neatly organized in a scrapbook where you know exactly what you are going to find.

All in all, though, my reading, writing, and quiet place is back. With just a bit more organization (stuffing things in the closet), it will be the perfect place for my evenings, and maybe I’ll be able to get to the short stories I kept threatening to rework and publish.