NewYears Eve 2013

The city is exploding with fireworks, as its citizens celebrate the end of the old and the arrival of the new. Our last two children arrived earlier today, and so we have a full nest, and thus our hearts are celebratory as well. It is a meaningful and heart-filling way for us to go out with the old and to bring in the new.

We are overwhelmed with thankfulness of God's goodness to us, even though in many ways it was a very challenging year. We said goodbye to Brenda's mother this year, which is was an unexpected heartbreak, and the day after we had her burial, our first grandchild was born, which would have been mom's first great-grandchild. It was a bitter and sweet time, and fairly reflective of the year as a whole.

We reduced our footprint significantly again this year, as we did last year, and found creative ways to live wider and farther on less resources. Or said another way, we chose to live with less, and less amenities, so that we could be closer to family and siblings which are in the middle of very difficult and terminal circumstances. We are making decisions that require us to walk more, bicycle more, take more time to get from point A to B, yet saving significant dollars, so that we can spend more days with those we love the most and have the least time remaining. Another one of those bitter and sweet experiences.

Yet our reach and influence in work has never been larger, our life-changing and significant points of growth and impact never greater. So we are thankful that we get to do meaningful and important work, even while our difficulties in our family are at a stage that is less than fun or frivolous. Bitter and sweet riding the same wave again.

This has been a year of hard lessons and events, yet some of the best moments too. Our grand-daughter brings us so much joy, and we have gotten to see her and spend time with her more than we imagined we ever would. We miss mom and have a hole in our hearts in the place she had in our lives. Other parents are struggling desperately as are some of our siblings, and we live far far away and that adds another layer of difficulty to the whole process and life we live.

But time moves forward and does not stop for any one of us, nor does even pause or give us a moment to catch our breath. 2013 is passing away into the history books and 2014 looms before us. We will make choices each day how to live it, and that will shape the now and the tomorrows.

What could we change?

We went to the bike show. No matter what you hear to the contrary, bikes are totally in vogue! There were a thousand bikes in the show or ridden to the show. Modifications were only limited by someone's imagination or dream.

It is something to consider were we to apply the same creativity to our vocation, productivity and innovation. What could we develop? What value could we provide? What could we change? We are only limited by our imagination or dreams!

Christmas Eve

This is Christmas Eve.  What that means to people is different as people are different. When I was a kid, this was the most anticipated event of my entire year.  It was the anticipation that made it so incredibly rich and intense. Christmas Day itself, never topped the pure pleasure of Christmas Eve, it equaled it some years, but never exceeded it.

There is an important lesson in that for life in general. Anticipation is the great energizer, that which gives life the best texture, the deepest pleasure, the most richness, it is the great enhancer of life deep and full. The physical equivalent would be when you are at the pinnacle of conditioning, right before you run the marathon you have been training for for the last 10 months.  The spiritual equivalent would be when you heart is clean and your sins forgiven, the freshness of a new start, especially after really blowing it. Anticipation. It is Hope alive and well.

Anticipation is usually even better than whatever you are, …er, well, anticipating.  Not always, but usually. If I approach life overall this way, filled with anticipation of what can be, may be, could be, might happen, could occur, it is the ultimate what if. And that potential can set us free to be…

The best worst

Christmas is the worst best time of the year to travel. Travel at this time of year can create such amazing anticipation, and the deepest of worries. We can be together with our family again … probably, if we make too tight connections, if the fog lifts, if the plane is not delayed, if the snow storm misses us.

Yes Christmas is a really really bad weather time of the year to travel. In fact the Skopje Airport has only had one flight land the last three days. Of course I am winging my way exactly that direction … and no I don't know if I will finally get home tonight or not. I cannot control the fog blanketing the Balkan Peninsula, nor can I fly the plane, nor do I make any of these decisions. The only decision that I get to make, is the one that happens inside of me. To be bitter and complain about the stupid weather, or fully present in the moment of my life right now and maximize it, experience it for all it is, rather than what I had hoped it might be?

Probably I will eventually get home and the kids flights will eventually arrive and all that I hope for will probably happen. But this is the most important moment of my life, in fact the only one I have. Best be fully present here in this moment now.

Jealousy and perspective

Jealousy can take many forms. Usually we think of it in terms of relationships and rights. But the way that it disables most leaders is in the glass-half-empty variety.

This is a malaise where you can not seem to have any keen appreciation for what you have, but only feel the “lack” that you perceive or think that you are experiencing. I am having this problem myself lately. I can only think about how other people's jobs are so much more fulfilling or easier than mine.

Of course this is not accurate, but the feeling is persistent. How do you overcome feelings that persist, especially when you cognitively know that they are not real or correct? Well that is a great question and one worthy of an answer.

One method that I am attempting today is a change of location. This has the automatic effect of changing all the rules and thus the feelings. I am no less creative than ever, but the change of location helps tremendously to alleviate all the symptoms of uninspiration and the lack of creativity. It gives an immediate sense of new possibilities and potential and new vista's open up cognitively in a real and immediate way.

Perhaps we only need a change of seating to change our outlook? Perhaps we need far less than we think to open up a new way of seeing things? Perhaps we need only to change the seat we are sitting in to have a new understanding of what surrounds us and defines the possibilities of today? How might you apply this to what you are facing right now?

The way things used to be isn't better than they are now.

The last time we stayed here in Ohrid our kids were small and we had a great time together. Now the kids are grown and one of them has even produce the darling child in the picture above. So this round, we are at Ohrid with one of our kids and our grandchild! There are marked differences in the two trips, but one is not better than the other, they are just different, and both are enjoyable. Of course Peanut (pictured above) is so young that she can't enjoy the lake and the food and the ambiance of a resort town. On the other hand, she is alot easier to satisfy than the 10, 8, and 6 year olds were.

The weirdness of time

Time is super weird.  Today as I was trying to get to the airport and was delayed at every point, time seemed to fly.  Then when I finally got to the airport for an International flight but the flight was not listed on any of the boards, time seem to surge forward ever faster and faster.  Would I make it to the gate in time? What if I had to switch concourses again?  What if I had to go all the way back to the rental car facility and start over??!!

This was real and urgent, though I can't explain it in a cogent fashion.  Thankfully there was a great article today about time management, and how it is really consciousness management and you can read that whole article here, "The Paradox of Doing More" by Faisal Hoque and Drake Baer.

By the way, it only took 36 minutes from rental car return to departure gate in the real world . . . but I swear to God it felt like almost three hours and I would have bet a $1000 that it really was.  Poor consciousness management.

Changes and losses?

There are few days more frustrating than one which starts at 2:40 AM with a mad rush to the airport to catch an EARLY morning flight . . . only to be bumped because the flight is overbooked and Austrian Airways, in a huge gaff, sent down a smaller plane on a day when the outgoing was overbooked!  So after I have three new flights assigned to me, I then cool my heels for two hours waiting for a flight to leave, when I could have been sleeping!!

Made the super short connection in Zagreb, and even chugged down a cappuccino, although that made me the last person on the flight to Frankfort.  After one of the most thorough and invasive security checks I have ever experienced (and that is saying something!!) I race to my gate, although I don't even have a boarding pass for the third leg of the flight.  If you have ever been to Frankfort, you know what a HUGE airport it is, and it takes far too long to get anywhere there.  I had less than a hour, change of terminals, no boarding pass, and the security-of-invasive-hell stopping me.  But I made the flight - last person on the plane twice in a row!

But the disappointing news was when the guy, with a hair-sticking-straight-up-into-the-air gel mohawk, was printing me a boarding pass, he informed me that they had already lost track of my checked bag.  

The funniest thing of all is that, I arrived at my destination 2.5 hours earlier than I would had I been able to keep my original flights!!  Isn't that just like life?  Crap happens, and everything gets changed around, you get all stressed out about what you cannot not possibly change, only to find out in the end, that what happened to you, carried a great gift. On the other hand, the bag arrived two days later.

The muscle team

This is a Sunday morning in Germany.  Berlin is absolutely one of my very favorite cities in the world and fortunately I get to enjoy the city regularly as my work brings me here often.  

As it is Sunday, church is a central part of my morning and focus.  But today I get to play a very special role.  Today I was part of the muscle on the venue team.  The venue team does all the heavy lifting and they get no up front time, no thanks, no public appreciation, no pats on the shoulder at the end of the service and hear "good sermon pastor." They get no kudos, encouragement, cheers, admiration nor many volunteers for that matter (for all of the above reasons and more).

But their work is essential for the good of the whole and regardless of how thankless a task it might be, church would simply not happen in its current form without them. So why am I, a person who has spoken here in this church in Berlin many times, and have spoke in far larger venues many times, working with the venue team as part of their muscle? What Matthew records Jesus saying is, "The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted."

That does not play well in this world, but it sure does in the world that matters.