The practice of the presence of God…
Posted by paulalanjones in Faith, Life on October 4, 2011
Many years ago I read a small book that had a real impact on me and changed how I viewed the Christian life, that book was ‘The Practice Of The Presence Of God‘ by Brother Lawrence, a 17th century monk. Before reading that book, and during many relapses since then, my relationship with God was like a long distance telephone call that occurred from time to time. It wasn’t until my early 20′s that I had any concept of the “presence” of God outside the biblical accounts of His glory as it appeared to the Patriarchs in blinding fashion. My reading of this book corresponded with my realization of the indwelling Spirit.
This past Sunday, Pete Wilson continued in his series ‘Shaped: Discovering your unique life with God‘ in a message entitled ‘Beyond the Surface Level’ which resurrected a memory of that little book I read some 20-odd years ago. In his message, Pete pointed out the stark contrast between how we often tend to pray and prayer that occurs in the context of God’s continual presence. When God is distant, we tend to try and invoke His hearing with formulation and intonation of our words in a chance that we can use the correct formula to get God to pay attention. In God’s presence, there is no need of formula and prayer is not a struggle.
As I considered his words, I reflected back on a time in my life when I had a clear realization of God’s continual presence in my life. During that time, my prayer life was more of an offering time, where I simple lifted things up to God while in His presence. Often my prayers consisted of fewer words and was more of simply being “before Him”. I remember having a personal practice of simply “remembering” things and people before God. Often, this was done without words. When I think about it, I can say that it was much like a young child, who has not yet mastered language, who holds something interesting in his hand and attempts to engage you by looking at the object then lifting it up to you– be it a toy, a piece of cheese or a booger. My old dog Leebie used to do something similar when she would dig up old rawhides in the yard, prance the muddy things into the house, just to show them to me before returning to the yard to burry them again– it was simply a way of her sharing what was of great interest to her at that moment, much like my prayers were.
Pete encouraged the church to practice silence and solitude this week as a way of encouraging the practice of the presence of God. It’s funny, because unless you can realize the continual presence of God you don’t really experience it– even though it is there. Brother Lawrence lived a life within the reality of God’s presence, so much so, that when his Superior would instruct him to take moments of solitude in designated prayer and meditation he would find it much less fruitful than simply living a life of continual prayer while carrying out the banality of human living. I have never known anyone who lived such a continually surrendered transcendent life as Brother Lawrence apparently had, but I have had seasons of my life where I experienced glimpses up such a living, and it was great to have this reminder to experience God’s presence in prayer. It leaves me with a fresh desire to remain in a experience where God’s presence is continual and real, in such a way that I can simply lift my hands and show Him something, without ever speaking a word.
Yeah, I have some opinions…
Posted by paulalanjones in Blogging, General, Life on August 15, 2011
I may as well admit it, I have opinions… lots and lots of opinions. In the recent past, my opinions were both and asset and a liability. Professionally, people sought my opinions… they paid me good money for them. Personally, I was a person that many people came to for advice on relationships, issues of faith and life in general. I think I got that from my dad, who was a natural problem-solver.
Sometime in the last five years, the negative side of my opinions caused some push back in my life. I had allowed my opinions to be a dream or joy killer. I had reached a place with my thoughts that I coldly offered what I thought to others and it had begun to have negative effects. I frequently heard phrases like, “you’re always so negative,” “you think you know everything,” or questions like, “why do you always need to criticize things.” I started realizing that my personal opinion had some negative issues.
One of the things that I realized about my opinions was that I tended to state things as facts. I think I learned how to do that from my dad. As kid, we thought my dad knew everything. While in fact, he did know a lot, it wasn’t until my dad began to develop dementia that I understood that my dad didn’t really know as much as you might believe. You see, my dad was a B.S. champion. He knew enough facts and had enough emotional intelligence to provide and answer to almost any question. Often, he would be right, but not because he knew something as fact, often he was making something up and simply stating his best-guess as fact– and for the most part, most people didn’t know the difference.
I had adopted my dad’s technique and it wasn’t until my dad’s dementia began to erode his cognitive process that it became clear to me. My dad’s illness caused some really odd things to happen. When people would ask him why he did something, he didn’t have a good answer he would start saying, “I don’t know.” Most of my family knew at that point something was wrong with him. The funny thing was that I had a completely different take on things. While most of my family was distracted with his behavior, I became acutely aware that his storytelling abilities were broken.
You see, my dad always did weird things, but he always had good excuses and stories about them. He could cover things up with B.S.– with his mind going, his ability to “know” things disappeared. It was after reflection on this that I ever really knew how much of my dad’s ability to “know” things was tied to his ability to make things up. It should be said though, that my dad was a very intelligent man and that on his good days, his best guess was as good as anyone else’s knowing– that is why everyone I’ve ever known trusted his opinions without reservation– without ever suspecting his opinons were based on educated guesses rather than actual knowledge.
I realized that much of what I stated as fact was actually hypothesis stated with certainty and while it may have been reasoned and possibly even a good guess, it wasn’t truth or fact per se. So, in my personal battle to be more agreeable and less of a joy/dream killer I began to qualify everything I said. I changed the way I worded things and started prefacing everything with, “I think” or “in my opinion.” With the deliberate removal of certainty I added a deliberate effort of not offering my opinion unless I was asked for it. On the positive side, my relationships began to improve and I was beginning to seem like much less of a debbie downer or someone constantly poised to debate, but I found something else started happening as well– people stopped seeking my opinion on things.
It was one of the oddest experiences of my life. Since I was a teenager, people came to me seeking counsel. People sought out my opinion on many different things both practical and personal. It seemed that while I was no longer as offensive with my opinions, they weren’t a highly regarded when hedged with “well, it might/could be…” or “I think…” I leaned quickly that people need some sort of certainty in their life and gather a lot of courage and support from someone they trust speaking definitively about something. It was odd that I had become more agreeable and less opinionated at the same time that people around me became less interested in what I thought.
So, it’s been about four years since I changed the way I spoke to others about what I think and while I love that I don’t bum them out so much, I hate not saying what I feel needs to be said. Enter some crazy political silliness and a handful of personal issues and I have suddenly found that opinion is raging inside of me. I see flashes of it and it explodes out of me. I fear something important about my personality has been repressed in all of this. However, my opinions have been allowed to grow and live in the recesses of my mind, unchecked by reality, so they have grown a little wild.
But I am convinced that I can’t keep them chained any longer… they must come out. So, this is your fair warning… be prepared for my opinion to be let off the chain now and again. I know it has made occasional appearances, but I think it might be coming out again for good and I may just let it be a little primitive. I don’t think that I am going to check my opinion with qualifiers and it is likely that I will state what I think as fact. If you don’t agree with me, don’t wilt, let me know what you think. Let’s live with a free enterprise of ideas and thought where we can learn from each other– speak up!
How much of what you state as fact is known and how much is best-guess?
Leaving things unfinished…
Posted by paulalanjones in General, Life on June 17, 2011
I am sitting in the Dallas/FW airport with Nashville, and a dozen unfinished projects, hundreds of miles behind me. Beginning this weekend I am on a two week unscripted road trip with my old buddy Avery which has no destination, for certain, other than as close as we can legally get to Area 51.
This trip is about checking out and enjoying something without deadlines, obligations or restrictions. This trip is about recovering that part of ourselves that is spontaneous and full of wonder.
I look forward to many evenings under desert star-filled skies, where I can take a break from all of my failures and allow myself to be filled with wonder once again.
How long has it been since you had a vacation that wasn’t full of schedules and obligations?
Searching for my MacGuffin…
Posted by paulalanjones in Faith, General, Life on June 13, 2011
A MacGuffin is a plot element that catches the viewers’ attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction. The MacGuffin is common in films, especially thrillers. Usually, though not always, the MacGuffin is the central focus of the film in the first act, and then declines in importance as the struggles and motivations of characters play out. It may come back into play at the climax of the story, but sometimes the MacGuffin is actually forgotten by the end of the film.
Somewhere in my 20′s I lost any sense of where I was going or what I was doing in life. I eventually recovered from that experience but the same thing happens again every few years until I figure out what I want to “go for” in life. It didn’t occur to me until recently that my constant need for something new to be interested in or curious about is kindof like creating a MacGuffin for the story of my life. You may never have heard the word MacGuffin before, but if you watch movies, you’ve seen them over and over again. The most famous MacGuffin is probably the Maltese Falcon.
Alfred Hitchcock is credited with making the term popular and lately it seems to be George Lucas’s constant search when penning new scripts for Indiana Jones. Usually, it has to be interesting enough to get you on board with the story,to set the protagonist in motion and to help establish the antagonist. The funny thing about it is that the MacGuffin is ultimately nothing. You could easily swap it out for another object and while it may not seem as interesting (some crystal alien skull or something) it wouldn’t change the major beats of the film or alter the changes experienced by the main character. The only thing it has to be, is something that somebody wants enough to do almost everything for.
Think about how often that works out in our lives. What is it that you are working for or pursuing after? Odds are, when you get to the end of your life, you will discover that much of your pursuits were the work of some sort of personal MacGuffin and that in the end obtaining what you have pursued has almost no value compared to the experiences that you had and the relationships with others you formed along the way. Many people experience this with careers or personal dreams. I think just about anything that can be acquired is a MacGuffin, be it a big house or the perfect pair of jeans.
Do you think Michael Jordan feels fulfilled having achieved what he did in basketball? I bet to this day, he is searching for or pursuing after another MacGuffin, because nothing is worse than a talented and capable person without a sense of purpose or goal. This is why I am searching for my MacGuffin. I know I am probably not created to achieve anything specific; however, I know I am created to love, serve and minister to others. I know this because regardless of what I have done or accomplished in my life, those things are the only thing that offer me a sense of value or make me feel alive.
The problem right now is that I am stagnant. I haven’t had a good MacGuffin for a long time and that has made me very unhappy. While MacGuffins have ultimately of little value in them self, they are the catalyst for action. They are a solid misdirection that causes you to bump into things you may not normally bump into, therefore, they are absolutely critical for you to experience the higher things in life. For fifteen years I was part of a church that was diligent to call a MacGuffin and MacGuffin and remind you how worthless they are in themselves in hopes of calling you to focus on the “higher” and more heavenly things.
I don’t know how many people in that church can live a life with their desires and passions castrated, but for a creative person like myself it was a pure soul killer. Some members don’t let the teachings in the church limit them, they pursue their dreams and chase unflinchingly after the brass ring, never seemingly feeling guilty about it– I guess they are just wired that way. I’m so much of a people pleaser , a legalist and a cynic that I spent man years being dutiful and faithful while my insides raged and bitterness turned to persistence as I practiced a religion out of pure spite of those who expected me to fail at it. As it turns out, failing became the best thing that happened to me; however, my soul remains wounded and I find it difficult to have any personal desire or passion that could ever be considered “worldly” or “low” so jobs, things and ideas are almost entirely out as possible MacGuffins for me because there is little I still value in them besides what they help provide practically.
So, here I sit, with a great story to tell and nothing good enough to motivate the main character into action. So, just like like George Lucas, I need a good MacGuffin to finish my story. What’s your MacGuffin? What is it that you desire, right now, that you are willing to do just about anything for?
Don’t believe the hype… brother.
Posted by paulalanjones in Uncategorized on June 3, 2011
Sometimes, I just have to vent a little– today just happens to be one of those times. Over the last several thousand years, the Christian church has been through hundreds of different phases. In America those phases seem to occur at a faster rate, especially in the last 50 years or so. It may be possible that my generation has seen more change in the church than any previous generation before it. Now, I don’t mean core revolutionary change, like in the Reformation, but more like seasonal changes.
I grew up Fundamental Baptist, a particularly legalistic branch of the Baptist denomination. When we moved to Georgia, my family churched hopped, never really finding a new church home. During that time, we mostly attended churches of the Southern Baptist variety– all of which were far more liberal than what I was used to in a church. I grew up believing that people were going to hell for a host of reasons ranging from having long hair to listening to rock-n-roll.
One Sunday evening at a local Southern Baptist church, I was invited to a special youth service, where I experienced things that confused me. Up until my early teens, I thought that the only clothing acceptable to God for Sunday worship was a suit and tie. At the special youth event, the kids were waring jeans (which offended me) and listened to Christian Rock music (which frightened me). As a kid, I was taught that rock music was something to be feared as satan’s music and so was only accessible to me at pizzerias and roller skating rinks. Never had I thought that I would hear something at church that had pounding drums and wailing electric guitars.
By the close of the 80′s and the onset of the 90′s, “contemporary Christian worship music” was making it’s way solidly into the newest and coolest churches around. Many older churches that added it to their programs, did so to attract the youth, but they often offered special “contemporary” services that were held separately so the older church members can enjoy the classic hymns. By the turn of the 21st century, most evangelical churches had adopted contemporary worship as their primary form.
I think media had a ton to do with this. The 1980′s saw the dawning of a new an powerful media machine, powered by cable television and fueled by the innovative music channel MTV. At the same time, the culture was shifting to follow a new media mantra “it’s all about me”. Television and print marketing flooded our minds with messages that encouraged indulgence and assured us over and over again the we are worth it. I think that the onset of such narcissism began to invade our churches as well.
The late 20th century saw an explosion in the self-help book market, rocketing it into a billion dollar industry. People began to be very concerned about themselves and Christians were no exception. Seeking “God’s will for MY life” seemed to become a new Christian direction. Outside of the Church in the secular realm, people were obsessed with being an “individual” and used every sort of consumable product possible as an accessory to achieve this. After all, the marketing messages were all about it. The funny thing about it is that individualism in this context was a thin veneer and people bought into it hook, line and sinker. Christians began to experiencing the effects of this mindset and it began to undermine the collective nature of the church.
People began to see church as less of a duty and more and more through eyes of the charismatic– something to be personally experienced. With the explosion of Christian media in the late 70′s and 80′s, they were keen to follow this trend and service Christians with greater and greater levels of self-help titles. Also, as a result of the explosion of media, Christians were being exposed to more and more differing religious experiences through the airwaves and later via the Internet. As a result, large groups of Christians began getting dissatisfied with what their particular brand of Christianity was serving up and emboldened with the new “you deserve it” and “…for me” mindsets, church members began leaving churches in search of something more personally fulfilling.
At the same time, media was giving televangelists huge exposure, which often backfired when scandals erupted. Add to this the advent of the Information Super Highway and the personal empowerment mentality became thoroughly ingrained in the American conscience. Technology began to accelerate the speed at which we interacted with the world and offered a superior level of control over our lives. Within a scant two decades a good chuck of American society had become incredibly narcissistic with a constant need for stimulation that only a constant stream of media could provide. This would begin to devastate the churches in America and give rise to a plethora of new churches whose main focus was to make the church “relevant” again.
Today it is 2011 and I have seen tremendous changes in the character and appearance of the Christian church. As you have probably gathered from my tone, I am a bit of a traditionalist and methods and practices of the “contemporary” church often seems to me to be little more than newly-shaped marketing messages created in order to protect a brand against a changing market. It is in the middle of all of this that my venting begins. I am not opposed to the church evaluating itself and altering its language in order to speak more clearly to different world, what I am opposed to, is the church adopting on the most prevailing lie that the marketing world has– HYPE.
This is probably the thing that bugs me most about the church that I currently meet with. They seem to love the hype. Language is regularly laced with superlatives. The next message is always “the most exciting” or “the most difficult” the guest speaker is often “the greatest communicator” and it seems like there is nothing that happens that isn’t supposed to be “the best ever.” It didn’t take me long to figure out that this is how almost all of the key leadership at the church talk publicly. The thing is, this is mostly veneer. On the inside, behind closed doors, things are not nearly that awesome. Messages are difficult and people actively struggle to make things relevant. Sometimes, messages are a big miss, and sometimes the guest speaker isn’t all that great. But you wouldn’t know that when you hear the leadership talk about it publicly.
I think this is the infection of marketing hype. Stay on message and talk like something is the way you want it to be, not necessarily the way it is. I think this comes from a missional objective that attempts to craft people’s “experience.” It is well documented that if you can use positive language, people generally stay positive. If something sucks, but you smile and tell them how awesome it is, people tend to question their judgement. It is a powerful marketing technique I call “shaping reality.” The stronger your influence on someone, the more ability you have to shape their reality– at least as far as impressions go. This is why celebrity sells in our culture. If the pastor thought that the guest speaker’s turd of a message was powerful and enlightening, maybe I missed something– or maybe that pastor knows about marketing.
Maybe this is why I struggle so much when I see a church make media such a key part of the “experience.” I guess it is the same reason I hate when the synth starts playing under the speakers prayer in long yearning minor chords. Perhaps I am myself a product of the “me, me, me” generation that is constantly seeking my own personal perfect. Maybe I am the one that is broken. As I try to figure out what is real and what is lie, I can tell you one thing– I will alway hate HYPE.
If my life were a movie, the trailer would be AWESOME…
Posted by paulalanjones in Blogging, Faith, General, Life on January 22, 2011
If I was to make a movie about my life, the trailer would contain all of the real good stuff. It would probably be a coming of age story about a child who didn’t fit in, who overcame challenges and had grand adventures. I would put in all the good parts. Even the bad parts of my life would be used, but only to build tension, to set up the payoff. Like the time I had an awesome, high paying job that positively robbed me of joy and how that drove me to change. All the bad stuff would be put on display, so, that it can set up the big spectacle pieces. It would have parts of my experience in the Desert Storm and my trips the Kenya and Japan. It would show my struggle to feel alive and possibly even my struggles with my faith. It would probably end with you wanting to know more and wanting to know how it turns out. In 30 seconds, it would hopefully make you concerned for my well-being and concerned for my future.
But if you know anything about movies, you probably know that trailers are a poor indicator of the quality, vibe or even the content of the actual movie. One thing that I am pretty sure of, is that while my awesome trailer might get your butts in the seat on opening weekend, my Rotten Tomatoes score would be positively rotten. You see, just like most studio films, I would give you all the good stuff from the movie.; all the stuff that is interesting and compelling. However, the actual movie wouldn’t contain the real action, adventure, or even the compelling coming-of-age story you were sold. What you would get, would be a boring indie drama full of heady dialog, filled with plot holes, which moved as such a glacial pace that even the movie Solaris would seem like an action/adventure film. It might be so poorly acted that you aren’t sure if it is truly a bad film or some brilliant awkward comedy. Whatever it is, it won’t be what you expected.
Recently, I started thinking about how I edit the trailer of my life, how I shape the presentation of my story to make it interesting to others. I don’t think this is unusual, I’m pretty sure that we all do this to some extent. However, what I started to realize is how often I get to know someone through their own trailer. My relationships are managed at such a level, rarely committing the time and energy to watch the multipart epics that comprise real lives. Often our jealousy of others is based on the incomplete picture we get from their trailer. Often we imagine how much better our own personal story would be if we had the same sources to cut from. How much better would my movie be if I had that attractive lead actor in it that played opposite me? If you watched the whole movie, you might find that actor couldn’t act and actually makes the movie worse. In the trailer, however, they flash the winning smile and display the charm that is easy to manipulate in short snippets.
I once read that the most critical element to any successful movie is action, heck, that is why they are called “move-ees” in the first place. That is why a director usually begins the capturing of a scene with the command, “action.” I was once told that the best movies can be watched with the sound off and still be interesting, because the bulk of what makes what something work on screen is the movement involved. The problem with my life as a movie, is that is involves a lot of sitting around talking– or even worse, sitting around thinking. Such action never makes for something worth watching.
But my life isn’t all sitting around, I have had those “moments” in my life where I actually did things. The most interesting and exciting things are those that make my trailer. The biggest problem lately is that those moments are getting really dated, and are getting old. I’ve been realizing lately that my life needs better material to work with. My script needs much improving. I need to alter those scenes where I talk about life and turn them into scenes that actually demonstrate living it. I don’t know how much time I have to tell a better story, but there is no better time than today to create some new and compiling material.
This next chapter in my life I want to be more like adapting a book to film, where the people who know the whole story complain that the 3 part epic misses too many interesting details and that the 60 second trailer doesn’t do the movie justice. Such a story can’t be told sitting on my couch in front of my computer, so it only makes sense that I stop right now and get back to living.
How about you, is the movie trailer of your life better than the actual movie? There is still time to change it. Ready? Action.
I resolve…
Posted by paulalanjones in Life on January 1, 2011
Well, it’s 2011 and I don’t feel different at all. 2010 was a crazy year and full of many ups and downs as well as many new any interesting experiences. Early in December I started getting reflective and thinking back over the year, hoping to distill from it some healthy and productive direction for 2011. Let me walk you trough some of the bigger events this year.
In March of last year, I got married. It has been a really up and down year for Kim and I, something that underlined the thought that getting married for the first time when you are older is really difficult. The older you get, the more entrenched you get in your ways and the more difficult it is to surrender yourself for another. I think being older helped me realize how selfish I am sooner, as the more set you are in your ways, the more easily it is to see where you fail to compromise. 2011 holds more challenges, as I learn to love my wife more than I love myself.
In May of 2010, I turned 40. This was hardly a blip on my radar as getting older has never bothered me. When I was ten years old, I dreamed of being an old man with a long grey beard, full of wisdom. While my dream of getting old will eventually come true, I am afraid that life has a funny way of pulling pranks on dreams– as it turns out, I can’t hardly grow a beard, and it appears that the older I get, the less I know. Life is funny some times.
In July of 2010, Kim and I were making great and regular progress with exercise. We had begun to walk at least once a day and I was already mixing the walking with short bouts of jogging. I thought we were poised to make some good progress on our waistlines when something happened. For Kim’s 3rd annual 37th birthday, I thought I would surprise her with a blast from her youth. She grew up on roller skates and I thought she would love the opportunity to relive her youth, so I took her to a roller rink.
Well, she loved it. It took us a little while to remember how to do it, but soon we were zooming around the rink. Being older, we became acutely aware of how differently our bodies worked and even though our minds had us thinking we could do things, our bodies failed to execute. At no time was this more apparent then when, I a burst of confidence, I uttered the phrase, “I’m going to try and advanced maneuver.” Without the gory details, I will simply say, I broke myself. I had torn or badly strained ligaments in both knees and before the day was over I was not able to walk. It took me months to recover– something that broke our pattern of exercise.
Messing up both of my knees almost prevented me from making my first trip to Las Vegas. Earlier in the year, my friend Josh had gotten me added on to a video project for the label Big Machine shooting concert video for Justin Moore and Steel Magnolia in Detroit. In August Josh and I were asked to go to Las Vegas to shoot behind the scenes video for Rascal Flatts, and having busted knees almost prevented that from happening. Luckily, I was able to manage the pain and had a real blast.
This year I worked a lot more as a camera operator, something I haven’t enjoyed much in the past, but found, as I gained more confidence, I really enjoyed. Additional projects with Big Machine and others gave me some fun projects to work on and help me focus more on shooting.
Toward the end of the summer, Kim and I began connected more with a homeless feeding ministry and have over the last 3 months become more and more involved with them. Both Kim and I have a heart for serving others, so, it was good that we could find something like this that we could pour some of energy into. Going into it, Kim and I explored our desire to let the opportunity help us connect with people, something that began to happen the first time we went to help out at a feeding.
The first time we showed up, we discovered that there was plenty of help serving the food, so when we asked what we could do to help, we were told, “talk to them.” Well, I am never really good at striking up conversations, and when speaking with homeless people, the perfunctory “what do you for a living?” doesn’t get the conversation started. Lucky for me, I only had a minute or so of awkward standing around that Kim had struck up a conversation. I tagged along with her and jumped in. We sat and talked with a man who had no arms. He would eat by balancing a plate filled with food on the nub of his left arm. He told us stories about being arrested in small southern towns and running drugs from Florida. Between sentences, he would dive into the plate head first, using his chin to spin the plate into position for the next bite.
The conversation ended when the plate became unbalanced and the remains of his plate spilled. We sprung to get him more food and to clean up what was on the ground, but I think he was embarrassed and he got up and walked away. The following visit, we would meet Belinda and that would open the door for us to get to know an entire camp of homeless. That tale could probably fill an entire book, but needless to say, we learned a lot about homelessness in Nashville. Along the way, I learned a lot about myself and why and how I love. One painful thing I became aware of, is how conditional me love is.
We didn’t just make homeless friends this year. Our neighborhood began to organize and we met lots of great couples in our neighborhood. Community is something that Kim and I desire to develop around ourselves and we are learning just how much energy and intention it takes to have it. One great addition to our community has been a local home group through our church. This past Fall, a couple that moved from Florida jump started a group in our area of town (something that Kim and I failed at trying to do in 2009). Through this group, we have met more great couples which we can begin to connect with on a spiritual level as well.
I could go on and on. I think one major thing I need to acknowledge is God’s provision for us this year. Jehovah Jireh. The Lord is our Provider.
As I look forward into 2011, I look with eager anticipation for change. 2010 seemed to be a year of revelation, opening my eyes and showing me things I didn’t want to see. This is the first year that I’ve felt like I needed to make some resolutions. 2011 is to be a year with some direction. Four years ago, I read a book about Benjamin Franklin called The First American. One of the things about the book that left a major impression is something that is known as his 13 virtues. The 13 virtues was a guideline that Franklin created for himself to live by, it was a series of resolution he intended to live by. By the end of his life he felt that they were an important reason why he was able to have such an enjoyable life.
This year, I am borrowing Franklin’s 13 virtues as a framework for my New Years Resolutions:
- Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
- Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
- Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
- Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
- Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
- Industry. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
- Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
- Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
- Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
- Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
- Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
- Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
- Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
Most importantly, I think my resolution is to simply “do more and think less.” I have found that various forms of fear prevent me from achieving many things. Often I don’t do something because I am afraid I won’t do it right or be able to do it in a way that I will be happy with. This year, I resolve to do something wrong more often than I do nothing at all.
daydreams and mental drifting– maybe story is a sickness
Posted by paulalanjones in Uncategorized on September 4, 2010
Well, it only took two days before I tripped and missed a day yesterday . I thought I could make up the loss, but today, I spent the whole day outside due to the awesome weather we were experiencing. Now I’m here, with an hour left on day 4 and I’ve got nothing. Well, I can’t say I honestly have nothing, I just don’t have anything interesting to say about story. I guess the problem is that I haven’t figured out how to create something substantial without spending a substantial part of my day on it.
Regardless of the circumstances, story has been rolling around in my head constantly throughout the day. But, I’m having trouble taming it. It is a subject with such significant scope it is difficult to do something with it. I really want to focus on where story impacts my life, but it is tough to do that when you keep asking the question, “what is story.” Every time I ask myself that question, my brain takes a different rabbit trail. Perhaps my problem is that I want to tell a good story about story, and somehow, that just seems like the subject of a Twilight Zone episode or something.
I keep wanting to fit thoughts and ideas into a narrative. I wasn’t really aware of it until this morning, but it is very difficult for me to listen to anyone talk for an extended period of time without my mind drifting off on to some tangental narrative. I had no idea how much I did this until I was sitting at my computer listening to an old message from Crosspoint about personal baggage. As Pete spoke about situations where trust is broken, my imagination took every example and began creating stories with it. In a matter of seconds, I had created characters and placed them in situations and I watched these characters, in my mind, as their actions effected on another. I have no idea why I do this. When this happens, I have little “wake up” moments where I realize that my mind has drifted and I missed whatever was said for the past several minutes.
Perhaps this is an extension of something similar that I experienced as a child. In school, I was a major daydreamer. I could space out for long periods of time as teachers taught. I could stare out the window and imagine little adventures and conversations…. hmmm, I haven’t thought about this before, but a lot of what I imagine is conversations. It appears that a great deal of my narratives are like some intellectual indie film, full of heady dialog. Perhaps I use this to reason, to sort out information, or to weigh the validity of ideas. At the moment, it isn’t really clear to me. This is something I am going to have to think about.
Does your mind drift? Do you find yourself daydreaming often? If so, why do you think that happens? What is so interesting about the stories in your own head?








