Nothing really...just a quick note.

So a month has gone by...strange how your own blog can feel like having a job. or a loved one, something you are responsible to care for and feed. More than once, I have gone to bed and one of those fleeting thoughts that close out the day would be, "man I haven't blogged in weeks" and I would feel the guilt that comes with abandonment. Oh for cryin'- out- loud, is this not the pathetic hallmark of a striving male adult who means well and works diligently to keep all the balls in the air and fights continually to keep things from flying apart.

So I sit here in my cool basement office, put together by my loving wife as a gift to me, (actually one of the best gifts I ever received, the gift of personal space) and write mainly to break the absence from blogdom. In the past I would be driven to blog by thoughts that seemed to cry out for articulation, to be birthed in the hopes that once they were expressed they would become clearer and of more value in my sojourn. Not this time. This is just bloggin' for bloggin'-sake, something to break the slump of expression and re-ignite my quest for transparent authenticity.

So life's circumstances just kind of go on, regardless of your readiness level...Sandi's parent are both home now. For the moment, things are relatively stable and our involvement, though significant, is not at the fever pitch it had been. My Mom is dealing with shingles in the left eye and scalp region. At 91, a son can't help but wince at the odd combination of basic health and independence overlayed by a frail vulnerableness that reduces her ability to roll with life's punches. Caring for surviving parents can turn out to be a big deal when you get to the stage of life I am waking to each morning.
Couple these responsibilities with the weekly efforts to make a living at a 100% commission job and the enemy has plenty of handles and fodder to constantly offer me a background filled with worrisome noise and lies. My intentionality to be fostering a closer walk with God, to practice the presence of Christ, requires a near constant effort to shut down the senses of dread, angst and anxiety that stands at my door and knocks. You see, there are 2 standing at that door knocking and which I let in, which I believe to be true. determines the trajectory of the day.

Summer is so many peoples favorite season. It's not mine...too hot, to much burning sun trying to suck the moisture out of every living thing, especially our lawn. Trying to keep the grass green is a foolish hobby, I admit it. But I have fallen prey to trying to outwit nature's attempt to torch the front bank that sits at 45 degrees to the sun all day being tortured by the relentless rays. I read somewhere that our modern day sod really hearkens from very wet parts of the world. They require amazing amounts of water to stay green and for an old hose dragger like me, my efforts seem pathetic and worthy only of my embarrassment.

The talk of recession, the rising costs of everything, the lack of any visible relief on the horizon, these mark the news as reporters trip over themselves to tell us how bad it's getting and that we ain't seen nothin' yet. Taking a fast from the news is one idea for a cheap sort of vacation. Let them yammer on without me listening on or reading. Yet, the dismal financial outlook is also kind of a social leveler and acts to bring us together and give us all (well not the folks that live in North Oaks!) more of life in common. Instead of just some people feeling the pinch, it becomes a much more universally-felt experience and brings us together....sort of. The one redeeming feature to me is how it causes more people to be more deliberate about life, it slows down the consumption fever that is so easy to catch. When people start switching from Target to Walmart, from Outback to McDonalds, who's not to argue that things indeed seem to be winding down and the end feels like it's rushing toward us like a run-away train.

And so I spend my days with the pursuit of intimacy in walking through all of this with God, to loving my wife well, to chasing a living by matching qualified candidates with medical sales opportunities, by concentrating on keeping all the family plates spinning on each of their wobbling sticks and by nipping away at summer projects that feed my sense of simple accomplishment. An ordinary man going through an unspectacular life hoping not to miss the main priorities and hoping not to come out the other side having spent too much energy on mere survival and not enough on abandoned living. Attempting not to negatively effect those closest to me with my disciplined approach to "gettin' er' done!". To take time to see others, to slow my fevered pace to check things off the To Do list enough to be available, to be present in the now, to live in the moment. To quell my pull toward cynicism and to actually live (not just talk) in accordance with the truth I profess. Certainly not newsworthy stuff but it's all I've got for now and it does at least serve to break my 4-week bloggin' slump.

Time to get the birds some more food..... They neither sow nor reap yet......