The Week of the Move

It's the week of the move and we're knee deep in boxes, bubble wrap, and packing tape. It's quite exhausting no doubt, but we're thankful. It's great that before taking the next step on our journey we're being slimmed down even further. It's kind of a natural process I guess, and i really like it. Throwing stuff away we haven't used in 4 years, we have used but won't need anymore, and stuff that's just that....stuff, and we don't need it! It's a great feeling and the load is getting lighter by the second.

But then there are things we're having to do which feel crazy. Like the fact that we're moving into a 2 bedroom apartment while Kell goes for her masters! And the fact that I won't have a garage to work in (that is until He provides one), and the fact that I had to throw away a bunch of wood yesterday that we won't have room for in storage which could've been turned into furniture. We're not sure where Kelly will have room to sew. And income, yeah I'll get back to you on that. That's to name a few.

But yet, it's all right. You know? All right. It doesn't feel wrong, just crazy. We asked for this and we're getting it. There will be twists and turns and bumps, smooth sailing, and rough waters. And we're in it. Enjoying the ride. Embracing the adventure. Everything we need will come if it's not already sitting in our lap. And really i'm coming to learn that all the stuff we can't see....that's the easy part. He's got that. It's what we can see that's difficult. That person in the mirror who wants to know the answers. 

Well the answers will come.  In the meantime, time to finish up packing the kitchen.  Going to get the moving truck tomorrow!  Blogging will certainly be sporadic over the next week or so, but I look forward to giving details when I can! 

peace

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)

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(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