a shared life

It was well over a year ago that i started my first blog.  It felt like a good idea at the time, but i wasn't sure why.  Because i didn't know the "why?" i really lost interest.  I was a sporadic blogger at best.  Oddly enough during the time that I was "sporadically" blogging, i probably had the most consistent stream of life changing events flowing through me than i can imagine in recent memory. i was in a new city, my young family was growing, i was working a job as a salesman (something I personally never wanted to be), i pastored a small church plant (again, although a great experience, something in life that never really matched up with who i really wanted to be, but this one was way better than the salesman thing although I was doing them at the same time!), i was struggling with my own personal identity....obviously!, i was meeting with my mentor and being led into real life (through death mind you, but that's a post for another day), and i was inching closer and closer to realizing my dreams and deciding to go for them, because if they were put in me by The Creator I was learning that was enough. Writing that out helps me see why i kept up with my blog so poorly! Kind of had a lot going on.

Well, that begging question of "why?" was answered recently. And the answer....me!  I need to write it out.  I need to share it.  Although, now this is important, you don't have to read it!  I just have to share it, because a shared life is Van Gogh hanging in a gallery for all to see.  But a life not shared is a Van Gogh hidden in an attic.  And each life, afterall, is a Van Gogh, a Picasso, a Mozart....you name it. why not share them?

Well i realized one reason why i'm hesitant to share my own life.  Judgement.  But not just any garden variety judgement....MY judgement!  Yes it is true, if i know you, i have judged you.  Good or bad.  And to think of you placing the same harsh judgement on me...well that's horrifying and paralyzing, but only until i lay down the judgement, and once i do i fear nothing.  The harshest critic, the loudest voice yelling "you're crazy and stupid", the eagle eye picking apart my every move...they move me not because i am starving those voices, letting them be (thank you J.S. for the Beautiful Mind analogy).

So here we go!  Follow if you like, or don't. No worries!  I'll be over here sharing my life...for me really. Getting it out.  Letting it go.  Don't get me wrong, I'd love for you to be encouraged, inspired, moved, entertained, whatever, but it's ok if your not.

So let me share a quick bit and them I'm out for today. Recently, as in the end of April 2011, I quit my job, my good paying job. Why?  Because i wasn't being true to me.  What else, i started building furniture in my garage because i love it, and i started a small company with my wife.  We make things with our hands with the hope that as we do we'll have opportunity to give away love in the form of tables and beds.  Yes we sell our stuff, but when we sell, we also give away (i.e. toms shoes).  This is our dream.  It's even bigger than that, but I'll just start there today.  But even with all of that, that's not really the main thing we are doing.  The "main thing" you ask?....we're letting go.  Dying.  We're giving up.  There's a way we've personally helped create here on planet Earth which involves climbing to the top, making and keeping as much money as possible, aquiring as much stuff as you possibly can, relentless competing, gamesmanship, manipulation, selling, and stealing....and well, it just hasn't worked for us.  And yes I've personally tried ALL of those with quite dissappointing results.

But on the other hand, there's another way.  There's this mysterious unknown begging us all to explore it.  And we're stepping into it.  With our whole life.  And I'm going to share it.