R.E.M....The One I Love

I was about 12 years old or so when I was introduced to R.E.M. (thanks uncle Dean!).  It didn't take me long to be hooked on albums such as Document and Green.  When Dean told me about their upcoming concert I of course couldn't contain my little 12 year old self and saved up my money so I could tag along with him to the Omni in downtown Atlanta.  I remember the night well.  We had pizza before the concert and made it to our seats in time to hear the opening act.  The openers were a couple girls just getting popular at the time...you may have heard of the Indigo Girls??!!  They did wonderful.  One of the highlights from the IG's was their song "Kid Fears".  In the middle of the song a young Michael Stipe (lead singer of R.E.M. for those that don't know) stepped up on the stage and sang with them in what was a perfect way to start the evening.  Later R.E.M. came out and tore the place apart.  Their encore was "Stand" and everybody in the place just about popped out of their skin.  It was fantastic and also my first real concert...I was in Heaven.

I've since listened to their music for years and years and heard recently they are hanging it up.  Well it's ok with me because the music they've written has already been implanted inside and I'll always be a fan.

One of my favorite tunes they ever wrote was actually a hidden track on the Green album.  It's unofficially called "This World is Big".  I must have played this album until the CD cracked in half, and I always waited till this hidden gem came popping out of the quiet moments after the last official track on the CD was over.  But at some point, years later on one of my road trips between GA and TX going to college, I would hear the song in a different way.  As soon as I heard it in this new way, there was no turning back.  You see, the song kinda doesn't make a lot of sense.  It's really sweet and melodic and I just liked it.  But when I heard it one day as a conversation between the Creator and the created...I was changed forever.

Now I have no idea what R.E.M. really meant when they wrote this song, and I don't really care.  I know what it means to me.  Enjoy the lyrics, and if you like I've embedded a player at the bottom so you can enjoy the song too.  The song is sung in kind of a "round".  For me, the Creator is the main voice and the created are the echoes (or lyrics in parentheses).

Thanks R.E.M....and yes, I feel fine.   

This World is Big

This world is big (this world is big) and so-awake (and so-awake)
I stayed up late (I stayed up late) to hear your voice
This light is here (this light is here) to keep you warm (to keep you warm)
This song is here (this song is here) to keep you strong


I made a list of things to say
But all I really want to say (But all I want)
All I really want to say is (That's all I want)
Hold her and keep him strong (I made a list of things to say)
While I'm away from here (But all I want, that's all I want)
Hold her and keep her strong (This world is big and so-awake)
While I'm away from here (I stayed up late to hear your voice)
Hold him and keep him strong (This light is here to keep you warm)
While I'm away from here (This song is here to keep you strong)


I've seen the world and so-awake
And stay up late to hear me sing (keep her strong)
Just hold her
I've seen the world and so-awake
And stay up late to hear me sing (keep him strong)
Just hold him


Hold her and keep her strong (I've seen the world and so-awake)
While I'm away from here (So stay up late to hear me sing)
Hold him and keep him strong (I've seen the world and so-awake)
While I'm away from here (So stay up late to hear me sing)

Get this widget | Track details | eSnips Social DNA

(sorry iphone users and other mobile devices...I'm not sure if this will work on anything other than desktops and laptops...maybe I'll get more tech savy one day : )

Paycheckaholic

My name is Clint, and I'm addicted to paychecks...

Immediately upon turning 15 I got a job.  I was a bagger at Kroger.  Tips were good.  My favorite time of year to be a bagger was Christmas as people were so nice and cheery then.  I loved to ask the older ladies, buying clearly more food then they could eat in 2 months, about the incoming family they were so obviously getting ready to cook for.  There was also the time where my friend and fellow bagger Kenny, a 50 something divorced dad previously addicted to drugs with problems I really couldn't understand at that age but probably acted like I could, found an unopened 24 pack of beer at the bottom of some forgetful or hurried shopper's cart he was returning from the lot.  You would've thought it was christmas that night!  He was so excited.  Being older and understanding a little more about life now, I probably would've been excited too.  That was a lot of free beer!

From there I worked at my church's recreational center, which was a total blast, until I graduated highschool and went on to college.  As soon as I got to college I delivered pizza for Papa for a semester until it honestly got too dangerous.  I guess I picked up a knack for delivery as I then went on to have a work study job until I graduated college 4 years later delivering all sizes of "reports" all over campus to different offices (yes email was just getting started back then).  I drove a massive cargo van with no a/c and got to know a lot of people.  I loved it.  OH, and every college summer I worked at a kids camp which kept the paycheck streak alive!

Let me get to the point.  I graduated college and got a job as an area director for a kids ministry in FL.  After a year of that I did some oddball construction jobs here and there to make ends meet, then worked as a maitenance man at a church, then was hired as a junior high minister at the same church where I cleaned the toilets.  After all that my wife and I moved to Dallas and both worked part time jobs while we raised support to go work with a church plant in Paris, France.  I worked at a law firm until it was time to go overseas at which point we transitioned into a life of working abroad for about a year.  We then came back to the states and I picked up full time employment back at the same law firm until I felt like I needed to get a big boy job in the sales world.  This is when we moved to Houston and I pounded the pavement for 3 1/2 years as a sales guy in the medical world. At one point I even had two jobs, one as a salesman and then a part-time gig as a pastor of a small church plant which ended a couple years ago.  So finally at the end of April 2011 I quit my sales job.  

OH! the point...here you go.  That's 18 or so solid years collecting a paycheck, paying uncle sam, clocking in and clocking out, feeding social security, and so on and so on.  It's now been 5 months since I collected a paycheck.  The longest stretch since I joined the workforce at 15 years old.  Now, yes, I asked for these 5 months.  I fully recognize I'm not in the place of millions of presently or previously unemployed who would love to have just one of the jobs I've had.  When it comes to employment, I've been fortunate...very fortunate.  I also realize that 18 years in the workforce is a drop in the bucket compared to countless who have worked decades upon decades.

But as far as I'm concerned I've had a "working problem", and i've been clean now for 5 months.  I've had withdrawals along the way.  Every muscle in my back has found a way to seize up or give out as I've "coped" with not getting my financial fix every 2 weeks.  I've had ulcers in my mouth.  I've been incredibly moody and had moments where it's best if I was just alone.  I've panicked.  Cried.  Sweat.  Lost sleep.  Lost weight.  A few times along the way I've lost hope.  Goodbye savings.  Goodbye security as I've known it...the green kind.

But you know what....Hello Life!  Hello to a new phase.  Greetings to days of knowing Whose I really am.  Money is important, I get that.  It will come i again.  I enjoy working hard, I really do.  I've worked my butt off in a steamy garage all summer with everything to show for it except cash...and that's fine with me.  What has been made clear to me is that I am to jump, and trust, and enjoy the ride no matter how fun, difficult, crazy, exciting, or dull it may be.

The Zen Reader

I'll confess it right away...I'm a horrible reader.  On average I probably purchase 6 or so books a year, of those I start maybe 3-4, and I complete maybe 1.  Ahhhhh, that feels better to get that off my chest.

What's horrible is that of the books I start or finish I am always greatly impacted, which of course begs the question, "why doesn't he read more?".  I will say that when we lived in The Netherlands I just about finished the Narnia series while going back and forth on the train from Den Haag to Amsterdam almlost every day.  And considering that I get car sick easily, it certainly speaks to how much I enjoyed reading those books.  While living in Paris I read The DaVinci Code and thoroughly enjoyed it.  There was something so great about reading it in the city it was based which made it even better! I also read more than usual when I was doing sales.  Spending so much time in the car I found myself parking outside a hospital and reading a quick few pages before grinding it out in the world of sales.  During my salesman years I knocked out "Kitchen Confidential", "Three Cups of Tea", "Visionary Business", and I think maybe one more.  Oh I also read "It's Not About the Bike" by Lance Armstrong over Christmas in Germany years ago.  If reading is important, I think I should move my family to Europe. 

Anyways, last night I started reading a book suggested by my cousin Michael that our great uncle, Tucker Callaway, wrote years ago called "Zen Way, Jesus Way".  Until Michael said something I didn't even know it existed!  Tucker was a missionary in Japan for some 20 years.  The fact that he wrote it coupled with the fact that I know very little about him and yet want to know more are the main reasons why I'm reading it.  I'm also very intrigued by the title!  Don't worry, I'm not becoming a Zen Buddhist, "not that there's anything wrong with that!"(thank you Seinfeld), but I honestly wouldn't have the time (and yes I know Zen Buddhist would be shaking their heads to hear me say that).

The first few pages have really been great though, and I'd love to share these Zen poems he placed in the beginning of the book to give a basic understanding to readers like me of the Zen Buddhism lifestyle:

Bamboo shadows sweep

stairs of stone,

But the dust on them

stirs not.

and then this one....

Divine way,

Awesome activity:

To draw water!

To carry firewood!

And here is what the author, my great uncle, wrote regarding these poems....

     "The first poem suggests detachment.  Altough the shadows move, nothing moves.  And this motionless movement moves nothing.  The dust on those moon-flecked stairs is not swept by the sweeping shadows.  There is no effect, for there is no cause.

     If the first depicts detachment, the second poem indicates involvement.  Even such simple tasks as drawing water from a well or carrying an armload of firewood from a forest are performed with an intensity of awareness which causes it to take on a mystical aura akin to holy ritual.

     Complete detachment, total  involvement - both at the same time!  These are the twin characteristics of the Zen Way."

It's amazing how something my great uncle wrote so long ago could come to me at exactly the right time.  To be unmoved by the craziness around me, and yet so connected to each moment at the same time, this is such a beautiful picture to me.  Especially right now. 

I didn't know Tucker that well.  I was really young when I met him.  I remember he looked like Santa.  He often wore a red long sleeve turtleneck as I recall.  Anyhow, I'm sure he wasn't thinking of me as he inked out this book back in 1976 (I wasn't born till 1977).  But your words found there way to me Tucker, and I'm so glad they did.

Seinfeld and Dylan...been on my mind

One of my all time favorite scenes from Seinfeld.  Been thinking about this show lately.  About how we're all connected and how all the events of our lives seem to effect others.  This show captured that perfectly I think.  This clip doesn't necessarily reflect that, but it's still one of my favorites.

(Click "Play" and then click on the "Watch on YouTube" link...it wouldn't embed, but you can still watch.  It will open in a new window.  Hilarious stuff!)



And finally these lyrics from Bob Dylan's "Blowin in the Wind".  They've just been on my mind, and they speak to so much going on in our world. 

How many roads most a man walk down
Before you call him a man ?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand ?
Yes, how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes, how many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea ?
Yes, how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free ?
Yes, how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn't see ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes, how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky ?
Yes, how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry ?
Yes, how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

-Blowin' in the Wind, Dylan

Pack it Up!

I've packed up a house and moved over 30 times in my life.  I know it's over thirty but beyond that I've honestly lost count.  Somewhere between the 5th and 10th times it was something fun and exciting to do.  Between move #10 and #20 I think it probably felt a little like a job at times, but strangely enough a job I enjoyed.  And all the rest just became easy and mindless and something I could do without really stressing or worrying.  I had a system, and once I kicked it into gear, look out!  There were a couple exceptions however.  The move overseas for Kelly and I back in 03', that was difficult.  I've packed up cardboard boxes a thousand times, but cramming it all in suitcases which couldn't be more than 75lbs...well this was a challenge.  But it was a challenge I relished, and conquered.  Each subsiquent move in Europe (Den Haag to our friend's apartment in Paris, and then from there to our own apartment, and then from our own apartment back to the states), these were interesting.  Some of the highlights of our European moves were being driven in a moving truck by our French friend with wild curly red hair whose driving was inspired by the wildness of his locks, storing our stuff underground in archaic caves something akin to a creepy crypt, somehow managing to lug enough stuff to warrant the help of 10 assistants with just Kelly and I all accross Europe on Trains and busses, and lugging new purchases back from IKEA over 20 miles with no car (those were some interesting bus and train rides!).

All this moving has really produced an adventurous spirit within me, a "just-get-it-done" attitude, and a real appreciation for systematic thinking (sounds dorky but it's true).  But the "just-get-it-done" attribute, that's one of my favorites.  For instance, there was the time in Paris my friend and team leader Frank bought a dryer for his family.  None of us had a car and we didn't think we could fit it in one anyways...which also meant taxis were out.  So I looked at Frank and said, "let's just walk it back".  Frank, being the adventurous guy that he is, was all in.  We borrowed a dolly from the local butcher whom Frank had befriended, took a train, and picked it up.  What was next was a fantastic walk I'll never forget pushing a dryer on a butcher's dolly clear accross the city of Paris laughing and talking and making a wonderful memory with a great friend.  And it worked : )  We got it back to his apartment.  And did it matter how we got it there?  Form, fashion, method...whatever!  We did it, and that's what mattered.

So here we are on our next move.  Packing up a house pending a sale (which kinda feels like starting a marathon knowing at any point somebody could blow a whistle and just tell everybody to start again).  We're looking for a new place in a new city, which even that could change depending on a few outstanding issues.  And this time we're doing all this with a 4 year old and a 19 month old.  The latter could care less, but the former has questions and concerns and we're doing our best to walk with him through. Oh and if the the landlord of the new place we are to rent (wherever that is) asks for proof of income, at this point we'll just smile and say "we started a new small business that makes furniture and other goods to sell but to also give away...for love.....and well sir/mam, we'll get back to you in a year or so on that whole income thing.  k!?" 

Now that I've painted that picture for you of total stress and crazy making stuff, here's the deal.   We're actually ok.  We're finding peace in the middle of it all.  Don't get me wrong, we still stress.  We still worry and try to figure things out at times that are really impossible to figure out.  There are moments of feeling terribly inadequate, stupid, and crazy.  But with each step forward that we take we feel more at home no matter where we are or what's happening around us, and that is worth every move.

Hawkmoon

Like a desert needs rain
Like a town needs a name
I need your love

Like a drifter needs a room
Hawkmoon
I need your love
I need your love

Like a rhythm unbroken
Like drums in the night
Like sweet soul music
Like sunlight
I need your love

Like coming home
And you don't know where you've been
Like black coffee
Like nicotine
I need your love
I need your love
I need your love

When the night has no end
And the day yet to begin
As the room spins around
I need your love
I need your love

Like a Phoenix rising needs a holy tree
Like the sweet revenge of a bitter enemy
I need your love

Like the hot needs the sun
Like honey on her tongue
Like the muzzle of a gun
Like oxygen
I need your love
I need your love
I need your love

When the night has no end
And the day yet to begin
As the room spins around
I need your love

I need your love...
Like thunder needs rain
Like a preacher needs pain
Like tongues of flame
Like a sheet stained
I need your love
I need your love

Like a needle needs a vein
Like someone to blame
Like a thought unchained
Like a runaway train
I need your love

I need your love..

Like faith needs a doubt
Like a freeway out
I need your love

Like powder needs a spark
Like lies need the dark
I need your love

In the heart of the heat of the love
In the heart of the heat of the love...

-Hawkmoon 269, U2

In Ten Years

I've never liked the question "Where do you see yourself in __ years".  Something has never jived with my personality on this one.  It's not that it's a bad question, I just never really liked trying to guess at something which I knew was probably going to change drastically or be near impossible to predict.  Look at it this way...tell me to guess the winner/loser in the Super Bowl all day long, big deal.  But tell me to guess not only the winner/loser, but each individual stat of each individual player and how each team would perform on offense including how many yards they would gain or give up and penalties and whether or not a player would get hurt and in that what kind of injury would it be and would the coaches get mad and throw down their headsets and how many people would be in the stands and ......yeah, impossible and crazy making. 

As a young dating couple somewhere around 11 or 12 years ago back in college, Kelly and I played that "revolutionary" game SIMS on the computer.  It has since faded a bit in it's popularity I think ; )  We did like any other SIMS player and set up our own little world, picked a house and it's furnishings, and on and on and on basically drawing up what we thought life would be like for ourselves in a few years down the road.  I don't quite remember all the details of our fantasy world, but I'm pretty sure it didn't look like it does now.  No, I'm quite positive.  And yet, we wouldn't have it any other way.

We could have NEVER drawn it up.  It's next to impossible really, and I'm so glad it is.  Because it's not really about where you'll end up, it's all about what will happen along the way.  That's the good stuff!  It doesn't mean it won't be hard and certainly there are many perceived obstacles waiting for all of us.  But it's what makes us who we are, each little moment in our lives, each little story, all the "good" and the "bad".

So I think I'll tell my kids that whenver they are asked "where do you see yourself in ten years?" to highly consider replying (respectfully of course) ..."honestly, I have no idea, and that's what makes life wonderful".  Better yet, I'll just do my best to live out of that montra, and maybe they'll come up with that response on their own.

Sale Pending

When you put your house on the market, you can kinda settle into this mode of thinking wherein you try your best to actually let go of the idea of selling your house.  Otherwise you drive yourself crazy stressing over when you're going to get the call, and believe me I was a champion stresser at times in this phase.  This is especially true in the current housing market.  Depending on where you live, you could be waiting for months.  We waited 9.  I know some who have waited much longer, some less, and some still waiting.  Either way, it's quite the ordeal.

After getting the call this past weekend that we have an offer on our house, we now enter into a whole new phase.  We will now go through all the typical things like inspection, option period, the buyers financing period, closing, blah blah blah and yadda yadda yadda.  And here's the deal, the same crazy making stress and worry you can experience when you're waiting for an offer comes right back around!  You now have a whole new set of problems!  Now you hang on pins and needles just hoping you don't get the call that something has screwed up and the deal has gone through...AAAAAHHHHHH. 

OK, switching gears for a bit.  Did you see the movie Munich?  This film is about the 1972 Olympic games where terrorists killed Israeli athletes and the retribution that followed.  The Israeli Prime Minister then ordered a team of assassins to kill anyone involved in taking down the athletes.  As the movie progresses, the suspected murderers are hunted down and taken out, but then questions start rising in the minds of the assassins trying to kill their way to revenge.  "When is this going to stop?", "How will this ever end?", "How many have to die?", "By killing these men, we've now made killers out of some of the ones that loved them, now what?"...You get the point.

Well, it's quite the dramatic movie (and it also makes some political statements, which I am not by the way), but I don't think it's that far of a stretch to apply the central lessons of that movie to many in my own life.  Basically - You can't make the problems dissappear, they are just going to keep coming around.  Try and make it all right and you're really going to make it all wrong.  Instead, settle into the craziness of this world and let what happens happen, being responsible for you.  The only thing which has EVER conquered the world, is love (this last one they didn't get into very much but is one of my biggest beliefs).

So yeah, now we sit in a house pending a sale in less than 5 weeks, and because of the nature of our journey, we're not completely sure of what's next.  I guess many new enemies to our inner peace will sprout up all over the place now, tons of questions, lots of doubt, and of course opportunities to fear around every corner, and we could try and take them all out or even act like they're not there...but whatever, let them come (because trust me they will).  I can do nothing about them.  I can, however, do everything about how I walk through each day with my family on this wild journey we're on.  Lord, give me love.    

hud's prayer

As I walked past Hud's room shortly after tucking him in for the evening last night, I heard him whispering.  I stopped and listened by his door and heard one of the sweetest things as he was gently speaking the lyrics to his current favorite Coldplay song, Politik, into the quiet night air of his bedroom...

give me time and give me space
give me real don't give me fake
give me strength, reserve control
give me heart and give me soul
give me love, give us a kiss
tell me your own politik

amen hud.

It's All in the Genes!!

My son walked out of the kitchen upset that he couldn't keep playing DJ on my iphone as it was now dinnertime and throwing quite the fit.  After Kelly diffused the situation she quite lovingly points out "you know, he's just so convinced he's right somehow, and he just wants his way" (and she was very right).  After she said this my mind naturally started thinking "so this is what they were trying to say in the movie Teenwolf!  It's all so clear to me now!!"  What?? What do you mean that's crazy!  That's not weird or random at all!  Here, I'll show you...



We and our kids, we're the same.  Cut from the same cloth.  It's all how we choose to see it.  Hud was clearly playing out MY most stubborn attributes!  It was like watching a movie of myself as he stomped out of the kitchen.  Now of course my kids...they are dreams come true.  But let's face it, we've all got our crap.  And as I see it, it's either an opportunity to get closer to our children or it's just annoying how they act so, so, sooooo...just like us!!  And it's up to us!  Hopefully I'll be the Teenwolf Dad, waiting for my kids at the table with breakfast, inviting them into conversation of why WE are the way WE are.  Hopefully.

what's goin down

"I think it's time we stop,
hey, what's that sound
everybody look what's goin down..."

  

just a swingin

lovin life

hud

sous chef

hud's photography lesson

dinner

ahhhhhhh

no hurry...take your time holls





Things I've Been Loving

There have been a few things I've been loving lately, whether it be an album, an inspiring t.v. show, the occasional book (I'm a notoriously bad reader, but I'm trying), lyrics, or even a tool in my shop.

Anthony Bourdain.  I love this guy.  He's anthropologie meets food and I can't get enough of his show "No Reservations".  I started watching him a few years ago and have been hooked ever since.  I read his book "Kitchen Confidential" and really enjoyed that.  My most recent favorite episode was one featuring a restaraunt in Spain called El Bulli (the Bull) in it's last days being opened to the public.  The place was run by chef Ferran Adria and focused on a menu that did things with food people have never imagined.  I would love to try and explain the food, but I can't!  It's so new, so something you've never seen, so something you won't see anywhere else...and they closed it.   But this is where it got inspiring.  Chef Ferran closed the place because he wants to reopen it in a few years as a creative center.  A place where people can come and try new things with food.  A place where not only chefs are welcome but architects, writers, teachers, thinkers, musicians, builders, painters, and whoever else that wants to blaze a new trail is welcomed too.  He doesn't want to look at food the same way anymore.  He wants to expand the boundaries and find new worlds.  I love it!!  Anthony's episode that featured this place ended with a man who learned under Chef Ferran saying..."I came here with no spirit, and left with a soul."  It was beautiful.

Other things in the "I've Been Loving" category are Paul Simon's new album "So Beautiful or So What", the expanding vocabulary of my daughter (she's now saying "this, this", "hi!", "flowa" (or flower), and a few others...love it!  And lastly, really been digging my chisel.

So Beautiful or So What

I’m going to make a chicken gumbo
Toss some sausage in the pot
I’m going to flavor it with okra
Cayenne pepper to make it hot
You know life is what we make of it
So beautiful or so what

I’m going to tell my kids a bedtime story
A play without a plot
Will it have a happy ending?
Maybe yeah, maybe not
I tell them life is what you make of it
So beautiful or so what

So beautiful
So beautiful
So what

I’m just a raindrop in a bucket
A coin dropped in a slot
I am an empty house on Weed Street
Across the road from the vacant lot
You know life is what you make of it
So beautiful or so what

Ain’t it strange the way we’re ignorant
How we seek out bad advice
How we jigger it and figure it
Mistaking value for the price
And play a game with time and love
Like a pair of rolling dice
So beautiful
So beautiful
So what

Four men on the balcony
Overlooking the parking lot
Pointing at a figure in the distance
Dr. King has just been shot
And the sirens long melody
Singing Savior Pass Me Not

Ain’t it strange the way we’re ignorant
How we seek out bad advice
How we jigger it and figure it
Mistaking value for the price
And play a game with time and love
Like a pair of rolling dice
So beautiful
So beautiful
So beautiful

Lastly, two books.

1.  The Cathedral Within.  This book focuses on social entrepreneurship which is the field which Harp Design Co could be considered in.  The book talks about the ancient cathedral builders and the lessons we can learn from them.  So Inspiring!!

2.  Zen Way, Jesus Way.  This one is on the way and I can't wait!!  It was written by my great uncle, Tucker Callaway!  I just learned about it actually from my cousin Michael (his blog is bullarkey).  I've known my great uncle was a missionary in Asia for years and years but I didn't know he wrote a book comparing Zen Buddhism and Christianity.  He actually practiced Zen Buddhism for the book!  I'm so proud to have a great uncle who had the courage to expand his boundaries and explore what others in his world could easily just write off as stupid or heretical or just plain bad.  As a Baptist missionary he really could've gotten in trouble for the book, and maybe did, I don't know...but he did it.  I haven't read it yet, and I don't know what to expect but I don't care.  I'm just glad to know of another explorer in my family tree (there are quite a few of us I'm learning : )

  

Have a wonderful Tuesday.

Autumn, our way

Living in TX it's no surprise that we deal with some unbelievable heat.  While many of my friends and family back home on the east coast already speak of such things as changing leaves, cool evenings, and the smell of autumn in the air as we enter September, we've still been feeling temperatures of 105 and 108.  It's hot.  And humid!  But an interesting thing has happened this summer (well quite a few things if you're counting, but I'll just focus on a couple in this post) which has helped in the process of changing our hearts to accept our circumstances.
                                       

At the beginning of the summer we threw ourselves in the perverbial "oven" with quite a few life changes which I've spoken about before on this blog.  Since then we've been taking steps every day into a new life where we're doing what we love, discovering what we love, spending more time with our family, going for our dreams, and truly letting the persons we've created over the years to manage all the hurt and pain and dissappointment and fear die...and letting God resurrect the true us (which I believe is hidden deep within each of us already, we just have to allow those layers to be peeled back and destroyed to get to the good stuff).

That was in May.

Timing is everything.

Because then summer came.  And it really got hot.  We found ourselves sorting out our new life, working through so many different emotions, so on and so on, and the temp rose and rose and rose.



(pic from our trip to Asheville Nov 09')



But through it all, and this is the most important part, we've walked.  No no, I don't mean metaphorically.  I mean we've walked!  As many days a week as we can stand, all summer long, regardless of how hot it's been, we've walked.  We've loaded our kids in the double stroller, filled up the water bottles, bagged some snacks, and walked a two mile loop.  Over, and over, and over again.  We'll stop halfway and chug as much ice water as humanly possible and start again.  We've laughed, cried, argued, yelled, cussed, joked, figured out, gotten more confused, laughed some more, learned a lot about eachother and ourselves, and even lost some lbs.  So when it's been 100 day after day after day for almost 3 months, we've walked.  When 100 wasn't enough and we went into 105/106/107 territory, we've walked.  Then this last week a miracle happened and the temp went down to 96/95 and sometimes even 90 in the shade!!  And as we walked we realized something...if we had stayed inside all summer and avoided the heat, we wouldn't appreciate 95 degrees.  Low 90's would feel just the same as 100+.  But because we've been out there walking, we feel every degree of difference.  We know what it feels like in the furnace, and we feel the change.  We love, welcome, and appreciate the change.  The change is good.  And as a young boy growing up in GA and NC when Autumn starting coming, you felt it.  Everything started to change and there was nothing you could do to stop it, nor would you want to.  And now at 95 degrees we feel the change in so many different ways and the ushering in of a new season, and we're so happy it's here...and even more thankful we're alive and in tune to the difference. 

Why "Riverdog Run"?

Years ago I wanted to start building things for a living...maybe a furniture company.  I had decided I would call it Riverdog Furniture.  I liked the name a lot, but mostly for sentimental reasons.  I really hung on to it for as long as I could as it says so much about who I am as a person.  That being said, when it came to naming a company that...something didn't flow.  I even had a logo made (and my friend Sarah did an incredible job), but as the months went by there was just something there that didn't jive.  Well, in regards to a company name, my wife and I joined forces and came up with Harp Design Co.  That one works perfectly, and we're proud of it.  But what about Riverdog??  I couldn't just leave it alone, it just had to fit somewhere in my life!

Enter my blog, Riverdog Run.  This was the perfect solution!  Afterall, I started this blog to open up about me, and riverdog and run say so much about me.

Riverdog - growing up I spent a lot of time as a young kid playing with my family, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc on the Chattahoochee at my grandparents house.  There always seemed to be a dog, cat, or even a peacock running around.  The dogs were always my favorite.  I loved them because they seemed so at home.  This was even more true once my grandparents moved up to the mountains of North Georgia and lived on acres and acres of wooded land with a river running right straight through it all.  There the dogs roamed free, cut their own trails, played their own forest games, patrolled the river, and basically lived in there own little doggy wonderland.  Well, this is how I desire to live life.  Something in those dogs rubbed off on me.  I love to blaze my own trails.  Take me hiking and I'm the first to look for something new, wander off, and basically get lost in the wonder all around me.  Life should be an adventure right!?  Or should I say, it IS an adventure, and it's up to us to take an active part in it as opposed to sleeping through it.  I've found there to be this set of laws, general practices, basic understandings that have quite a lot of us feeling stuck.  I don't mean laws in the sense of "no shoplifting" or "can't lie on your taxes" or "can't shoot people".  I'm talking more about the laws that we've created as a society, maybe even accidentally.  These laws are more like "when you get old you have to get a job like everyone else and pay bills" or "if you think it's crazy it probably is so don't even think about it" or "hey that's fun to dream and all but get back to work" or "hey until you have all the money to take care of all the practicalities, accidentals, contengincies, and back up plans, keep your head down and don't ask questions".  Well, maybe I'm the fool, but I'm beginning to think that's a bunch of bunk.  Look at the riverdogs, see how they run and play, see how they are clothed in the finest of furs, see how they are fed and have shelter and need only to be themselves letting their Creator take care of the rest?!  (wait, where have I heard that before??)  But "being yourself", being who God made you to be, doing what He made you to do...this is where it can get tricky.  I mean, what's the answer??  I want to work, I want to pour myself into something, I want to be what He wants me to be.  I guess figuring that out is what the journey is about really.

And RUN.  Well, the "run" part is a little more self explanatory, but just as meaningful to me.  I love to run.  I can't think of a time where I haven't loved running.  Yes even all the way back to 1st grade and my first mile run at Haw Creek Elementary.  I think it was called the "Liberty Run".  Anyhow, everyone else probably just dorked around.  Me however, I ran that thing.  I didn't stop the whole way baby.  And after that race I knew I would run a bunch more, with as few stops as possible.  As it turns out, the little 1st grader was right.  I've run a bunch.  Mile after mile after mile.  There's something addicting to it for me.  There's also something freeing.  When I'm running it's just me, the concrete, and the Mystery...and oh what a glorious time it is.  I'll run as long as these knees hold up because when I run, I feel Him. (cue the Charriots of Fire music)

There you go.  Riverdog Run.  That's me.  I could keep going on, but you might pass out.  Have a lovely day!