Nathan Lee Green's Blog, page 3

Marriages Like Rockets

Marriages like rockets

Launched at distant planets

Everything necessary

To propagate new life, new families, whole new worlds

Greater than the sum of its parts

Spreading like waves

Part of a hurtling cloud

Other rockets, satellite souls, come and go

Making kids now

New lives joining in

Rockets become stations

Serious now, plans, goals, not only survive and grow but win

Rocket’s getting rocky

Bumps, near crashes

Resources feeling strained

Tensions rise, maneuvering asteroids, gases, disasters

Hurtling through emptiness

Tiny metal box

Pressure feels too much

Any day it’s going to drop or pop from these knocks

Suffocating can’t breathe

These other people need so much from me

This can’t be the life I was meant to lead

Supposed to be an astronaut, not a machine

What happened to the life I dreamed

I’d live and be and do and see

Taking so much out of me

Can’t pause, but can’t proceed

Explosions out the window

First one then the other

And a third and another

Falling like shattered comets, you start to wonder

If they can’t make it work

Those beautiful ships outside

(We were at their wedding, so perfect, so happy)

How are we ever going to stay alive and survive this never-ending onward drive

We’ll die

I swear I’m scared

You and I we are not prepared

It’s just too hard, too high, too tight, too far

This screaming in my ears

Yelling back, I’m stressed, I’m grinding gears

I’ve lost myself in this monster that’s grown

The black hole’s not out there it’s right here in our home

You’re not the you I used to know and pursue

You’re somebody else I never even knew

And because of you and them I’m someone else too

I can’t stand my anal retentive control freak I’m counting again three two…

Breathe

Go to your room

I need to breathe

Need a release this is just not me

I got good grades in astronaut school

Thought I could handle all this stuff spacemen have to do

Not many rockets left now from our fleet

If they can’t hack it then how can we?

I wrote this after hearing about yet another marriage breaking apart in our broader circle of friends. There have been so many now, it’s sometimes hard to keep track of which marriages have survived and which have not.

This is sort of a part one. I’ve written more, but Wendy didn’t like the other stuff as much and it was getting long, so for now I’ll just publish this.

It’s much easier to lament pain and problems, and paint a picture of all that hurts and scares us, than to artfully describe solutions. Or if not solutions, at least some kind of balm for the soul (too cheesy?).

Well, writing this was my balm. Maybe it will be something like that for you too.

Photo by Bill Jelen on Unsplash

How I Survived 30 Days With (Almost) No Digital Media

Today is the day after a month-long fast from all digital media, except…

movies at the movie theater,

music,

email,

and websites or apps needed to get work done

(and, as it turned out, communal video games).

I’ve always been slow to upgrade to new technology (unless it’s free), so it was not until last year that I really experienced for the first time the true power of having a smartphone. Not only did I get a blazing fast iPhone SE*, but I switched carriers and for the first time in my life had access to a respectable data plan to go with the new phone**.

Once I upgraded to my new phone on my new plan with my new shiny high speed data, I became one of those phone zombies I normally look down my nose at from my moral high ground. I thought I was better than everyone else, but it turns out I was just technologically handicapped enough not to be tempted by my smartphone.

Being 2017, the News app was my drug of choice, followed by Instagram and Twitter. It was suddenly so easy to tap or slide and read page after page of news and thoughts, getting fired up by trolls and the part of the population active on social media whom I did not agree with and who were prone to arguing and name calling.

I would not be surprised to find out I digested more news media in 2017 than in all the years before that, combined.

After about a year of it, I realized I needed a break.

Not a ‘slow down and take it a little easier’ kind of break, but a full stop, 180 degree, let’s remember what silence is like kind of break.

Actually, it was really Rob Bell who inspired the whole thing. I was listening to his podcast one day when he said something like, if you let silence into your life then you’ll be able to hear the voice deep down inside that’s trying to guide you in the right direction. He said to try turning off the radio while driving and see if you hear that voice trying to talk through all the noise and distractions. (Ironic that a podcast got me to stop listening to podcasts?)

Did I mention I’ve felt more anxious this past year than ever before, or that I’ve had consistent trouble getting to sleep at night for the first time in my life?

I decided the main things that were stressing me out were news, social media, and podcasts. Podcasts are an interesting one, and I will get to that in a second. I decided while I was at it, I may as well get rid of television and movies and online videos for a month too.

All I really needed, I thought, would be music to work to, and to listen to with my kids, and email, and whatever websites and apps I needed to work. And maybe a trip or two to the movies.

Before the first of April came, I turned off all the notifications on my phone that I knew would distract and tempt me. News app, gone. Twitter, gone. Instagram, gone. I don’t have Facebook installed on my phone or it would have definitely been gone too. Anything else that seemed like it would add unnecessary noise to my life, gone.

I ended up checking the weather a lot, which I had not specifically included in my okay list, but weather seemed harmless to my mental wellbeing and also helpful for planning our days.

Other phone apps I did not specifically allow, but used without restriction because I needed them or because they helped instead of hurt my progress toward a zenlike state: MapMyRun, Yelp, Waze, Facebook Messenger, Paper, Bear, Calm, the Starbucks app, and the Bible app, and of course the camera and clock apps, which I don’t even think would qualify as digital media anyway.

So, let’s get to the point, shall we?

How was it? Did it change my life? Have I decided to move to the desert and become a monk? Did I manage to avoid all the temptations of 21st century digital media?

First of all, I did not experience any great big revelations. I have not made any major life altering decisions. Everything is basically the same. I cannot say my deep down inner voice, or the voice of God, or the universe, whatever you want to say it is, talked to me and gave me direction, but I think having more silence helped me to focus on priorities, plans, and goals, and start making progress on some things that had been easy to put off.

I did not miss the news. I heard about a few big stories from family and friends, and I saw front page headlines on the newspaper rack at Starbucks, but I did not feel compelled to find out the details or keep up with every single thing going on. I knew everything would be different in a few days anyway.

I did not really miss social media. There were a few times when I started to pick up my phone to look at Instagram and remembered I wasn’t doing that any more. My wife filled me in on any big news from our social circles.

I did not miss watching television, except as a way of relaxing with my wife. I’ve never been a big TV person and knowing I could catch up on anything I missed later took care of any FOMO I might have felt.

Even though the podcasts I listen to mostly help me learn and grow in my work and in general, I did not really miss them either. It was nice, actually, to just breathe and not feel the need to keep up with all the new episodes coming out. I’m a person who likes to check things off a list and seeing new episodes pop up on my phone sometimes feels like adding extra to-do items, as weird as that might sound.

I listen to some writing and publishing podcasts and it felt good not to be inundated with information about what I should be doing to help my indie writing career. They have been invaluable for teaching me the ropes of the industry and the finer points of storytelling, but it was good to take a month off.

I felt more relaxed.

I started meditating again. I read more, even some magazine articles, which has not happened in a while. I got more done around the house. I definitely wasted a lot less time. I started getting to bed earlier, and I think I slept better. I for sure had less bedtime anxiety.

I ate lunch outside with the kids almost every day. If I lived up north, I could say that was because of the weather, but I live in Florida.

I think I wrote more, too, though that could have been influenced by other things, like my wife’s schedule or having a better idea where my story was going.

I played two board games, which never happens anymore (I won Stratego but lost Settlers Of Catan).

I made progress on a big cleaning and rearranging job I had wanted to do in one of the rooms in our home for a long time.

Another funny thing. Because I wasn’t sharing photos and thoughts on the socials, I ended up texting friends directly instead, sharing things with one or two people instead of the world. I thought that was an interesting development.

Okay, confession time.

I did watch a couple nature documentaries with the kids on days when it was too hot to eat outside and we all really just wanted to sit and eat lunch or dinner and watch something.

Oh, and because my oldest had been asking lots of questions about Jesus after Easter, we also watched The Miracle Maker.

And I peeked in on some YouTube videos about Disney World Wendy and the kids were watching. Some of it was hard to miss, like when I was cleaning in the kitchen and they were watching in the living room. But some of it I could have gone into the other room to avoid. But I didn’t.

Then there were the video games.

We had friends over for dinner, and there was a running rivalry among us to see who could beat our friend Darius at the game Injustice. So we played an hour or two while they were over.

And toward the end of the month we got back to playing Super Mario Odyssey, which we stopped playing after beating the initial game. By then I had decided video games with other people were okay, even though they do stress me out sometimes. Especially Mario Kart.

I didn’t feel bad about any of these lapses back into the world of digital entertainment, but I do want to be honest about the whole experience. I wanted this to be about quieting down my life, but I didn’t want to be so strict that it turned into a painful experience, especially when it involved hanging out with other people or my family.

So, in summary, it was a very good month.

I missed watching movies, especially on Sunday afternoons, which is a ritual of mine. And I missed sitting down and watching something with my wife at the end of a long day, although that would have kept me from getting as much done as I did. But other than that, I didn’t miss much. I certainly did not suffer.

I’m very happy I decided to take this challenge. I’m kind of excited it’s over, but not as much as you might think. There are a few podcasts I’ve got lined up and a few movies I want to see. But, really, I’m hoping to keep more to the April way of doing things than the pre-April way.

Photo by Max Saeling on Unsplash

* As of the time I picked up my new phone, iPhone SEs were already three or four generations behind current iPhones, but I was upgrading from an iPhone 4S. On the 4S I was basically limited to calling and texting and listening to podcasts, especially toward the end when the 4S was blocked from updating to the latest iOS version. One by one, apps I could still sort of use began to tell me I could no longer use them until I updated them to the latest version, which also required the latest version of iOS, which I could not have on my phone. Even the podcast app succumbed in the end, and I was left with the equivalent of a flipless flip phone.

** This is not a sponsored post or anything, but just because I like to pass on good stuff when I find it, I highly recommend Cricket if you’re looking at changing carriers. As of this writing, their 2GB High Speed plan offers unlimited talk and text plus 2Gb of high speed data (you still have data access after that, just much slower) is available for $30 a month. Mine comes out to $35 with taxes and fees. When I signed up, the iPhone SE came with the plan for an extra $200, which seemed like a heck of a deal. They’re owned by AT&T and I’ve never had trouble getting signal except in the loneliest of mountain roads in North Carolina and California.

A Prayer For Parkland (In Response To Today’s Episode Of The Daily)

March 5th, 9:22am

Starbucks, Tuskawilla & Red Bug

Father,

Please help everyone affected by the Parkland shooting—the kids who survived and their families, and the families of the ones who didn’t make it, and the shooter and his family and friends.

Draw them close to you.

Help them to recover and heal.

Help the shooter to understand and feel the weight of what he did and to repent.

Help our nation to take the steps necessary to keep these things from happening as much as laws and policy can help, without taking the joy our of everyday life.

I pray for all these kids walking around with dark thoughts, lonely, pushed down and made fun of, who think about taking revenge and showing everyone what they can do. I pray you will get to them, put people in their lives who can show them truth and love and joy and peace, who can turn them away from becoming something dark and monstrous and toward someone making a positive difference in the world and saving life instead of taking it.

Help the entertainment industry to take some responsibility too, and to decide to make creative, original games, shows, and movies that are about more than running around killing, shooting, and blowing stuff up (or less…whichever would be better).

And help the makers and sellers of assault rifles and assault weapons which are designed specifically to take human lives to rethink what they do and why they do it, and to maybe decide to stop making those things, or at least stop selling them for all but military use.

I pray if the government fails to intervene, that the marketplace will step up instead, as they have done a little bit.

Show us how crazy we are to glorify weapons that take life just with a tiny movement of a finger.

No work, no skill, nothing but aiming a stick and the slight pull of one finger.

Teach us how to love like you love, Father, how to see the world like you see it, and how to live like you want us to live.

Amen.

2017—Year In Review

Here we go…

What did I accomplish this year?

In terms of things I actually put out into the world, there was very little this year.

2 podcast episodes
4 blog posts
Website remodel: nathanleegreen.com
Website remodel: ocsplora.com
And possibly a short story, Umberrica, but that might have been last year

There were a few things I worked on this year, but did not finish.

My next novel, Cloudrise (I wrote 8 chapters and published 5 on Wattpad.com)
An untitled memoir (2,265 words…so…sort of missed the 50k NaNoWriMo goal)
2 interviews recorded for podcast (in addition to the 2 already published)

If we talk about what I accomplished in terms of physical, unpaid, non-media work, it looks a little better. (This was almost all with help, not by myself. Not in chronological order.)

Cleaned out most of an entire house
Took down cabinets and counters
Repainted and trimmed multiple rooms
Tore out carpet in master bedroom
Refloored master bedroom and bathroom and closets (laminate and tile, including removing and replacing toilet)
Replumbed washer hookups and installed washer and dryer
Cleaned and rearranged garage multiple times
Put up shelves in garage and living room
Removed flooring in back porch
Took down old wooden fencing beside garage
Cleaned out utility trailer (then filled it back up with scrap wood and pipes)
Removed wooden walls added onto trailer for raised garden bed
Pressure washed front and back of house and inside porch
Got rid of tons of crap
Patched 3 holes in ceiling (one that I made, one the A/C guy made, and one that a tree made half a decade ago)
Helped put in new air conditioning tubes (?), boxes (?), returns, and thermostat (and one of the holes in the ceiling)
Redid brick walkway next to driveway
Cleared and placed front patio pavers, then removed and redid in a different pattern (awaiting a big concrete job to finish front patio)
Lined new patio area with foot-tall bamboo wall
Added sandbox area between new patio and new brick walkway (for the boys)
Replaced dryer vent
Set up birdhouse (twice) and hung lights across part of backyard using it as anchor post
Put strings of lights up on back porch ceiling
Put up gutters in back porch to channel leaks (sort of works)
Moved canopy frame from side of house to backyard to create a roofed shed-like area (no roof yet, waiting for tarp back from neighbor)
Cleaned out porch and area behind porch, reorganized and rearranged
Reinforced old water damaged workbench (moved to area behind porch)
Pruned, pruned, pruned…and finally burned up all the pruned debris on New Year’s Eve
Got mulch (like, a dump truck full)
Distributed some of the mulch (much more to do)
Fixed water dispenser in fridge (but not ice)
Fixed garbage disposal

So, not a lot of creative work to share with the world this year, but tons of work around the house we’re living in.

What went well this year?

We embraced our move to Florida and our new lives here. We haven’t complained much or talked about how things might be better somewhere else or about what is next in our lives. We’re very present here and very content here, which is a nice change for me, I have to say.

I’ve had a lot of help with the boys this year, between Mom and Dad and Wendy’s parents and Liz and Darius. There has been much more of a ‘takes a village to raise a child’ feel to this year than the past 3 years since Asher was born, which has been a lot of upside for me, with not much downside.

As a result of the above, Wendy and I have had chances to hang out together without the boys, which will kind of culminate in our west coast trip in February, which will be by far the longest we have been away from the boys ever.

Work-wise, I learned a ton about home repair and remodeling. And, though I did not accomplish a ton of creative share-with-the-world work, I think I did set myself up for a great 2018 if can keep things moving.

I’ve got a book in the works, a podcast just getting started, websites redone and ready to go, a couple shirt designs ready to get printed, a nice routine going with working at Starbucks a bunch of times per week (like now), four podcast interviews under my belt and a few recorded conversations with Wendy to get me a little more confident, some opportunities to do work for Mom and Dad, and I think a better outlook on working on lots of different things at the same time (without the need to consolidate or force a schedule or attempt perfection).

So 2018 could feel like a very productive year on the back of 2017.

Everybody loves the boys and praises them pretty frequently, which makes me feel like I’m doing an okay job as a parent, even though I don’t often feel like it in the moment. I think my patience has been better towards the end of the year, but I’m hesitant to say for sure because it could’ve just been based on situations, or who knows what. I do think Wendy giving me the okay to get out more while she’s home has helped quite a bit. I feel much more at ease now than I did a month or two ago.

Also, I started waking up early to run, got up to 3 miles every morning, and have been really aware this year of what I’m putting into my body. Sometimes that has not meant I’ve been any healthier than before, but often I have done really well staying away from dairy, wheat, processed foods, and now meat. I’m not being super strict about it, but I am very conscious of it, and I feel like I’m on a good path moving into the new year.

What did not go well this year?

My writing has not been consistent this year. When I think about how much farther along I could be with the Brinnati book, I feel a little disappointed.

It’s been a tough year for that and I haven’t had the same motivation I had with Greysuits, but I do think I’m coming to a point now where I’m ready to drive ahead with the book and not be so attached to what the book used to be in my mind—to let it become whatever it wants to. I think I should map out a few major plot points that I can write toward.

My shoulders and elbows and back have been in rough shape, especially later in the year as I’ve been moving mulch and stuff. The running is great, but I need to get back to my upper body workouts, whether climbing, pull-ups and push-ups, or going to the gym to use equipment. I need to get serious about it so I can keep my body from getting old and decrepit.

This was our first year without a pet since 2008 when we found the kittens in the garage. I don’t know exactly what to think about that, except that I do miss Elvis (a few years ago we had to put Daytona down suddenly because of a disease I can’t remember the name of) sometimes quite a bit, and it would be nice to have a pet or two again. But I just don’t know if we should be taking on that kind of commitment or whether we should get a dog, two dogs, a cat, two cats, a dog and a cat…or a goldfish.

I’d hate get into a situation where we have a pet who is a menace to us and everyone who comes over, and only causes us grief, or even if it’s a great pet, causes us to not be able to travel as much as we’d like or go out for a whole day to do fun stuff or things like that.

I think we’re probably in about as good a situation as we could be in for getting a pet, but it’s hard to pull the trigger. And it’s more money, up front and over time.

Conclusion

2017 was a crazy year for the whole world and it was a crazy year for us.

We left Florida in the summer of 2008, just as the country was in the throes of a somewhat crazy (although tame in retrospect) presidential campaign cycle, stayed for all of the resulting president’s 8 years in office, then returned to Florida after the craziest election of my 37 year life, in February 2017, just as one of the most stressful years of America’s young history was beginning.

It was a messy year for the world, and especially America. And it was a messy year for us, in a way, because we moved into a house full of junk, dust, and family history. And like our country, we cleaned house. We got rid of everything we could, moved the rest into the garage, stacked floor to ceiling like a storage unit, and proceeded to make a house which had sat empty of people or life for 5 years into a home full of family, friends, and fun. That’s where the metaphor breaks down, of course.

Or maybe not. Our house is still a mess. There’s one whole room we haven’t even touched yet. As I said, there’s still tons of stuff in the garage, so we can’t really use it for parking cars or putting lawnmowers or anything useful like that. The yard is far from attractive, though it’s coming along. And there are all kinds of small things that still need to be done. Trim that needs to be painted, nail holes that need to be filled, walls and doors that need painting or touching up, pictures that need to be hung, gaps between rooms and hallways that need thresholds, a kitchen that desperately needs remodeling…and so much caulking that needs to happen. So. Much. Caulking.

So, leaving the metaphors behind, 2017 was crazy, but fun. And Florida has been great for our family, immediate and extended. Very excited to be starting new year, full of hope and projects and possibilities!

Photo: BOSSFIGHT

The Immigrant Jesus Debate of December 18th

I wasted a bunch of time on Twitter the other day.

Shocking, I know.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to the days when when my phone was so old and slow, I just didn’t bother with trying to do anything on it but call and text.

Anyways, I was scrolling a bunch of tweets from lots of different people, as happens on Twitter, when one particular tweet drew me in to its black hole thread-to-nowhere…as also happens on Twitter.

This is what started it—

Jesus Christ absolutely was an immigrant. Jesus and his mother Mary migrated to Egypt to escape the murderous King Herod. Matthew 2:1-21

Y'all think this Muslim doesn't know his Bible?

Y'all need to take a seat. https://t.co/q9v8r8bvhX

— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@MuslimIQ) December 18, 2017

Which was a response to this—

Jesus was not an immigrant, unless you're talking about immigrating from heaven.

— Rob Kringle (@robkroese) December 18, 2017

If you follow the thread, you’ll see a metric ton of people piling on, for the most part agreeing with Qasim Rashid that Jesus was, in fact, an immigrant.

I kept reading down the thread, response after response after response, almost all of which agreed with Rashid, and almost all of which were unnecessarily mean spirited.

I didn’t see a follow up from the initial comment by Rob Kroese, that Jesus was not an immigrant, and I wondered if he had anything else to say on the matter, if he had explained his point of view since his initial judgement was so matter-of-fact, but completely unexplained and unargued.

So I tapped on his Twitter handle, sending me to his profile, and first of all I noticed he was a writer who has written at least three books which look like science fiction. (Further along, I found out he’s written eighteen books.) Seeing as how I’ve only written one science fiction novel (and no other books), I’m already thinking this guy’s not just a lazy troll with nothing better to do than contradict progressive arguments about religion and politics. He does stuff, and it’s stuff that I do too.

Then I saw one of the books has a blurb from Hugh Howey, a fairly famous indie writer I follow and admire quite a bit, though I’ve never actually finished any of his novels. Also, Hugh is very progressive and constantly blogging, tweeting, and retweeting about politics from a very much left-leaning position, which doesn’t really mean anything in regards to the immigrant Jesus discussion, but I thought it was interesting.

It didn’t take long to get to the conversation about whether Jesus was an immigrant or not. It seemed that Kroese had actually responded to a number of the thread’s comments, mostly in a sarcastic, entertaining way, sometimes mean but generally no meaner than the comments he was responding to.

He and someone else who had sided with him in the discussion (I use the word discussion very loosely), @ThalesLives, had explained in much more detail that the Roman empire ruled both Judea and Egypt at the time that Jesus’ family received a warning from God and ran away to Egypt to escape the massacre of the innocents.

Hi. This is the Roman Empire around the time of Christ (see red/pink color). Your point is now refuted. Lolol. pic.twitter.com/pQERDcpkml

— Thales of Florida (@ThalesLives) December 18, 2017

As part of the same empire, Kroese’s and @ThalesLives’ logic holds, they would not be considered immigrants to Egypt. They also pointed out that Jesus did not stay in Egypt, but returned to Judea when it was safe and eventually died there.

His family temporarily took refuge in Egypt. They did not "immigrate" there. https://t.co/mZUBvkkBqA

— Rob Bloodaxe (@robkroese) December 18, 2017

Whichever dictionary is used by my Mac defines immigrant as “a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.”

I’m surprised by that definition actually, because from what I understand, and the story I’ve gotten from most immigrants I know, is immigrants rarely come here expecting to stay and grow old and die here. They usually expect to work hard, make money, and go back at some point, though I don’t think any of the ones I’ve ever known have returned home permanently.

Anyway, by that definition Kroese and @ThalesLives are correct in saying that Jesus and his family were not immigrants. I’m easily persuaded by the “comes to live permanently” part, because I don’t see any evidence that Jesus’ family went to Egypt to live permanently, but I’m not sure about the foreign country thing. When British subjects left England to come live permanently in America, was America not considered a foreign country even though it was under British rule? Were those British who moved to America not considered immigrants? I honestly don’t know.

And actually, going back to Qasim Rashid’s tweets—he called Jesus a migrant in the original tweet, not an immigrant (in the second tweet he used the word immigrant). And a migrant is just someone “who moves from one place to another.” So certainly Jesus would fit that bill. In fact, most of what we know about him involves him moving from one place to another.

Anyway, the reason I decided to try and reclaim my lost Twitter time in the form of a blog post was not to discuss whether or not Jesus could be considered an immigrant. It was to discuss how quick we are to jump on an idea that rings true with our agenda, especially when it uses our opponent’s traditions against them (such sweet satisfaction), and to attack anyone opposed to the idea, when we haven’t actually spent time listening to the assumed opponent or researching and studying for ourselves our own position.

I know saying all that is a little cliché right now because it seems like every rational person or platform is trying to say the same thing and meanwhile, most of us, even when we whole heartedly agree, aren’t actually changing our behavior at all.

But, still, why not say it again?

So here’s my plan, or at least my goal—

(Maybe just a hope.)

1. Be careful about liking and sharing or re-sharing things on social media. Even though I may be a fan of the person behind it, am I personally ready to defend that like or share? Especially be careful when tons of other people are piling on loudly without really trying to understand the other side of the argument.

2. Look for the best in the people I disagree with. Just because I disagree with them does not preclude them from being intelligent, funny, interesting people who I might agree with on any number of other things, and who might at the very least challenge my thinking in ways it desperately needs to be challenged. (I found many of Rob Kroese’s other tweets really interesting and challenging, though I mostly disagree with his political stance in general. He’s definitely right about The Last Jedi, though.)

3. Try to understand their views, even try forming an argument against my own view from their position, just so I understand the strengths and weaknesses of both sides. A weak argument is a terrible thing, especially when it’s parroted through social media over and over again without answering intelligent challenges (Flat Earthers and Elon Musk Conspiracy Theorists, I’m looking at you).

4. Don’t be too quick to like tweets and posts not backed by evidence, just because they seem right and, most importantly, are a kick to the other side’s huevos rancheros. Resist the urge to jump on the bandwagon.

5. Ask questions. Of everyone. All the time. People on your side. People on the other side. People on no side at all. And from a place of honest curiosity, not an “aha, I knew you didn’t actually have a good answer” mentality. Seek to understand.

Even Flat Earthers can’t be entirely written off. Why are they so adamant that the earth is flat when all of science and all the evidence says it is round? Do they just like to be against things? Do they feel the need to be underdogs facing overwhelming odds and that’s the only thing they’ve found to inspire them?* What’s going on there?

Photo by Edward Cisneros on Unsplash, modified by yours truly.

*If so, may I suggest abandoning that cause and jumping on global equality or world hunger or clean water or affordable housing or government/corporate integrity or environmental protection? Any of those will make the world a much better place than your struggle to prove you are right and everyone else is wrong. What if you are right? We still have all the same issues, plus now we have to worry about falling off the edge of the world.

4 Months Before Publication

Let’s rewind the clock, back to March 11th, 2016, four months before I hit publish on Greysuits, for just a quick glimpse into my thought process at the time…

(This is from a sort of prayer journal that I keep on Evernote and add to from time to time.)

It’s 1:45pm on a Friday. I’m at the Natick library, top floor next to the windows. The sun’s out and the air is warm. Not hot, and still breezy, but warm enough for a t-shirt. 

I’m trying to finish this stupid book that refuses to be finished. Maybe it’s not the book’s fault. Maybe it’s years and years of never finishing things that is holding me up. 

I don’t know how to finish it. 

I even have an ending, a whole last chapter locked and ready to publish. It’s just this one or two chapters in the gap that I’m having such a hard time with. Don’t know why, although it’s not the first time during the writing of this book that I’ve felt stuck and hard pressed to move forward. 

Part of it is my perfectionism. I feel like whatever I write is it, and has to be perfect the first time, especially this close to the end. But I’ve already scrapped huge chunks of the book multiple times, so I really should be getting over that feeling. 

Hopefully the next book will go faster, but that may be a misplaced hope. Really, I just need the structure of the book complete. I’m expecting to have to add and change and cut some things, but as long as an A to Z structure is in place, I think the rest will be fairly easy. 

But building the structure from scratch is where I have a hard time. I’m probably not the only one I guess. 

So I’ve got this epic music playing in my ears (‘To Jerusalem’, Kingdom Of Heaven Soundtrack) and I have these competing images of how to move forward and I’m trying to play out the ramifications of each competing decision to see which one will flow best into the ending and which one makes the most sense not just from a plot point of view, but also according to the reality of the world and the characters and the mechanics of things I know very little about, like space travel and nanobots and living and working on other worlds. 

Oh Father, please help me through this. Inspire me where I need it. Give me wisdom. And help me to know when I don’t need to be such a stickler for detail, especially when it would actually get in the way of the story instead of helping. 

Alright, 2pm now. 

I’ve written these words pretty quickly (for me). 

I’m warmed up. 

The pressure’s off a little. 

Back to work. 

The grace of God go with me.

Belated Thoughts on the 2016 Election

I’m so thankful I have friends and family all over the political spectrum, from one end to the other.

The people I most enjoy spending time with are the ones who know they haven’t got it all figured out, who are insatiably curious and never stop asking questions, who are willing to shift perspectives even if it means having to admit they were wrong or embrace as true a thing that should not be true according to their ideology.

And when you surround yourself with those kinds of people, there is no way to avoid having friends all over the political spectrum, not to mention the theological spectrum and every other kind of spectrum.

Living near Boston, it was easy to think no one in their right minds would vote for Donald J. Trump to become the most influential man on the planet. But when I got to Florida two weeks before the election, I realized there were many people in their right minds planning to do just that.

Before that trip, the 2016 election had been many things for me—historical, entertaining, frustrating—but it had never given me anxiety. Then I got to Florida. I saw the Trump signs. They were freaking everywhere. And no Clinton signs. Not even any Gary Johnson signs.

Even then, I didn’t worry about the election results. I just couldn’t believe so many people were willing to put signs in their yards or wave them around in parking lots for a man who most of them would go out of their way not to invite to Thanksgiving dinner if he were a member of their family. (Remember the time Uncle Donald said he’d pay you for painting his house, then never did, then grabbed your girlfriend’s boobs. Yeah, what say we leave him off the invitation list this year.)

Then I found out about people I actually know and deeply respect intending to vote for him and my mood plummeted, like for days. I had trouble sleeping at night, running through frustrating arguments in my head which never actually happened in real life.

Anyway, we all know what happened. The man won the election (with help from a foreign power who right wing conservatives used to despise and now openly embrace). And ever since the day he took office, really since the first primary debate, life has been an insane roller coaster ride for people who pay attention to politics. I’m guessing even his most ardent supporters have felt like they were on some kind of whiplash ride, even if they’ve been loving it while the rest of us are both wildly entertained and grossly horrified by it.

So, where am I going with this? Back to my original point, that’s where.

Though it can be maddening at times, it’s vital for us to know people on both sides of any legitimate debate (some debates are not legitimate, like which was a better film, The Matrix, or The Matrix: Reloaded?).

People who disagree with my political stance have sometimes very good and well thought out reasons. I’m 100% sure there are people who agree with my stance who have terrible, ignorant, and very shallow reasons for it.

In sum, do not close yourself off to people whose beliefs are not like yours, whose culture is not like yours, or whose values do not always align with yours. At the end of the day, if you could zoom out on the political landscape x1000, I believe you’d see that we all have so much more in common in our views that the things we disagree on would shrink to insignificance.

So say we all.

Photo: Bekah Russom/Unsplash

The Big Move: Boston To Orlando

Werner Kunz, https://www.flickr.com/photos/werkunz...

In two days, our family is making the epic voyage from our home near Boston, Massachusetts (specifically, the town of Natick) to a new home near Orlando, Florida (specifically, the city of Winter Park).

When we moved to Massachusetts in the summer of 2008, we drove a Toyota pickup truck, with most of our possessions in the bed, and towed our little Toyota Tercel behind us on a trailer. We had two cats with us, which we found in my parents’ garage earlier that year. We had no jobs, no apartment, no friends waiting for us in Massachusetts. We were like voluntary exiles in search of a new homeland.

Now, the same company where Wendy got a job during our first week up here is paying for our move back. They’re hauling down the same little Toyota Tercel, shipping at least 72 boxes of stuff, plus furniture, and paying for our drive down, including hotels and food. Instead of two cats, we are taking two kids down with us (one of our cats died a couple years ago and the other is staying with a friend until we come back for him this summer).

We left homeless and naive, with only our bright eyed faith and optimism to keep us going, and now we’re going back like royalty (at least it feels that way) and a family instead of a couple, hopefully with the same bright eyed faith and optimism, probably still a little naive.

Bill Dickinson, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...