How Safe Begins to Feel Unsafe

Photo Credit: evokilla (Creative Commons)

Photo Credit: evokilla (Creative Commons)

I belong to a writers’ group. This group is filled with people from a variety of places, backgrounds, faiths, family structures, and ages. We all focus our writing around different themes, but we have one thing in common. We share the burning desire to write and to improve each day.

We give and receive feedback on our writing from each other. Oftentimes it is complimentary, but sometimes thoughtfully constructive. I have grown very fond of this group. I am inspired by the risk my fellow writers take each day, by bearing their hearts to their readers.

I find courage to do the same by their examples. When I grow up as a writer, I want to be like them.

The most beautiful aspect of this group is the sense of community. I had the opportunity to spend 90 minutes on a Skype call with another member of this group. Even though we had never talked face to face before this call, we both walked away from the conversation feeling as though we chatted with an old friend. Such is the power of true kinship.

But an unexpected event occurred in the broader writing group which has given me pause, and caused me to reevaluate this community. A newer member of our group was offended over the spiritual content of some of the writers in the group, and excluded himself from us.

I have a myriad of emotions over this. I feel a sense of sadness because this person walked away from such a great and diverse group of friends and fellow writers. I have disappointment, because there was some level of unwillingness on his part to allow for others to write on topics that are uninteresting or offensive to him.

I am concerned that it was my approach to writing – which is fundamentally faith centered – which drove him away. At the same time, my resolve to continue the walk into my voice has been strengthened. I know that not everyone will find resonance in my writing. If everyone agrees, then my message is likely not worth writing.

Beyond these reactions, I am worried on a deeper level whether this community that I have so enjoyed is a place I should continue to share my art. If the group is not open to faith-based writing, then most of what I share becomes inappropriate for this audience.

The unfortunate result is that I may gravitate away from this wonderful community. Right now, I feel stifled in my creativity each time I consider further involvement with the group. I feel the suffocation as I consider whether to share my writing with these folks who have quickly become so valuable and encouraging to my growth as a writer.

At the same time, part of what makes meaningful relationships so important is the ability to disagree on topics, even important topics. If everyone has the same opinion on everything, there is no sharpening of skills. No growth. No challenge. No pushing each other to get better. To write stronger.

I am still in process on whether to step away from this group right now. The benefits to me as a young writer have been overwhelmingly positive. But the constriction on my art might overwhelm the goodness I would gain moving forward.

There are several individuals in particular who have given me strength to keep writing, keep pushing, keep risking. I hope I do not lose these mentors if I pull away from this writing group. But I value my momentum as a writer, my creative push, more than anything else. Even if it may cost me community.

Four Keys to Creative Momentum

Photo Credit: Unhindered by Talent (Creative Commons)

Photo Credit: Unhindered by Talent (Creative Commons)

Pursuing a passion can be daunting. Not everyone appreciates our art. We don’t get the attention we want. Or worse yet – people DO start noticing, and fear creeps in, whispering doubts into our ear.

It seems like either way, there are triggers that can easily lead to failure. How do we get around this, stay grounded in our creativity, and keep practicing in public to refine our skills? Here are the answers I have discovered over the past few months.

1) Seek out encouragers. Find people who believe in us, who see the potential in our work. Who will be advocates for us. Cheerleaders are wonderful and necessary for us as creative types, who can get easily downtrodden.  Often these encouragers can be writers or other artists who have matured more than you in their craft. These people are invaluable to long term success, but it’s not enough.

2) We also need honest feedback. This is a more difficult pill to swallow, and one we would prefer to avoid. We all need constructive criticism on our work to improve, but this is far different than our encouragers. We don’t necessarily choose our cheerleaders, but we must choose those to include in our feedback loop. People we trust, who understand our path and our creative goal. I have already found two people who will give me specific, honest feedback on my writing. I walk away from each ‘edit session’ a little more humble, and a much better writer.

3) Your blog is not your diary. I learned this lesson the hard way. I guest posted earlier this week with Unknown Jim, but wrote the first draft of this piece before Christmas. Here is the quote from that taught me this lesson:

On occasion, even my wife learns something about me by reading my blog.

My wife and I had an argument over this sentence. Not because she didn’t think it was honest, but because it was. And she told me so. I was writing and publishing posts without anyone reading them first. It wasn’t my best work, because I was missing the chance to get honest feedback from the one person I trust most in this life. No more, and my writing is better for it. My message is clearer…and I have fewer typos.

4) Avoid Hero Worship. We have to avoid setting our goals as a person.

I want to be just like Seth Godin. Michael Hyatt is my idol. [Insert your hero here.]

These thoughts destroy our own creativity and place us in a box designed by another. Each one of us is created uniquely, with a different voice and a separate message. Your message will resonate with the people you connect with, but this will never happen if you do not step into your own voice and create your own artistry.

What would you add to this list?

Guest Posting Today

I am guest posting over at Unknown Jim today. Stop by and talk with me about the insecurities that all writers deal with and how….well, come on by and you can join the conversation.

If you are visiting from Jim’s page, thanks for coming! Here’s a snippet of some of my more popular posts:

Have fun poking around!

What About That Dead Dream?

Photo Credit: cyanocorax (Creative Commons)

Photo Credit: cyanocorax (Creative Commons)

What do you do when your dream changes? When it just withers and dies unexpectedly upon the vine of life?

For twenty years, I ‘knew’ I was called to full time pastoral ministry. I went to school to gain the training to support this dream. I got an internship in my senior year as a first step. I was even offered a full time position at the end of the internship.

Something felt wrong, so I rejected the offer. So glad I did. I found out later the youth pastor I would be replacing had caused great wounding to his young followers. I didn’t have the maturity to lead a church through this terrible event. But I assumed another job would come along.

It never did. Twenty years later, I find myself no closer to full-time ministry. For many years, I struggled mightily with this disconnect between my vocation and my calling. As i have started writing over the past few months, something unexpected has happened.

The dream of full time church ministry has melted away. Like ice on the sidewalk on a hot Phoenix day, it is just gone. I have no passion for the idea of full-time pastoral ministry anymore. Don’t get me wrong.

I still want to be engaged in serving in my church. I love my church, and I am committed to being involved in the ministry to our community and the world abroad. Just no longing to work full time as a pastor at a church.

I am finding the same passion that was filled by the idea of pastoring now presently filled by writing. By loving others and serving them with my words. So there is no lack of dreams. The dream is just changed.

I feel both an emptiness and a peace as I come to grips with this new reality. There is life birthing in the remnants of this newly dead dream.

Have you ever found a long-time dream suddenly dead in your heart?

When God Sucker Punches You

Photo credit: leunix (Creative Commons)

Photo credit: leunix (Creative Commons)

I couldn’t even believe what I was hearing. The medical diagnosis was shocking. Something I was not prepared for emotionally. I’d just been sucker punched. I could look back on the last few years and see how the symptoms fit what had been happening in my life. That didn’t mean it made sense for me today though. Beyond confusion though, I was angry. At God.

How could you do this to me God? I thought you loved me? Where is the love today – did you forget it at home?

I know I am not alone in this feeling. You’ve been there too. We all have. It might be a medical situation, like it was for me. Maybe it’s the death of your child. A divorce. The overwhelming darkness we see on the evening news every day. Unemployment.

This is a big moment in our faith. When things get serious, and we have to decide what we really believe, because what we know and what we see don’t reconcile.

What we see is…well, it’s a disaster. Life is ripping apart at the seams and we just don’t know how to make sense of it. Hope is a distant memory, and things just gets worse when we try to reconcile our reality with what we see in the Bible. James 1:2-4 is a perfect example.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Yes, JOY is exactly how I want to consider my trials. Sheer and utter joy. A trip to Disneyland without lines. And yet, that’s what it sounds like the Bible is telling us to do. What God expects from us, when He’s the one who sucker punched us in the first place. But maybe there is more going on than we realize in the moment.

God has the long term view of who we are becoming in the pain we are experiencing. He sees the end from the beginning and rejoices over the maturity we arrive at through the sorrow we go through now. It is from this place of eternity that God calls us to rejoice in trials, and it is the ultimate test of trusting Him. It comes down to a single question:

Do you trust God more than you trust your circumstances?

Answering this question is perhaps the key to writing the story of our life. As we learn to say yes, we are able to walk into a place of greater favor with God. To see life through His eyes, with His perfect vision. Our wounds get healed. We find hope. We discover the courage to move past our pain and into the destiny God has for us. We get unstuck.

 

Guest Posting Today

I am guest posting over at Grow with Stacy today. Stop by and listen to me tell a story about how my daughter Cynthia became a camp hero by….well, come on by and you can see what happens.

If you are visiting from Stacy’s page, thanks for coming! Here’s a snippet of some of my more popular posts:

Have fun poking around!

We Did More Than Survive

Photo Credit: Photography by Julia (Creative Commons)

Photo Credit: Photography by Julia (Creative Commons)

Fifteen years. Fifteen. Years. I repeated the words slowly to myself about 10 am yesterday, as I realized it was our anniversary (insert pithy comment about a typical male here). Two thoughts come to mind when I ponder the last fifteen years with my wife: Boy have we grown up, and has it ever been eventful!

Growth

Our first year of marriage was nearly an unmitigated disaster. We were so convinced we knew how to communicate that we wouldn’t listen to the other speak. Now we have taught classes and mentored couples on effective communication techniques in marriage. We have seen marriages rescued by using these strategies.

We have grown in comfort with one another. In the first few years of marriage, there was a great deal of uncertainty and insecurity:

Does she really love me?

Will he be drawn to her – she is skinnier than I am?

What will he say if I make THAT purchase?

Will she defend me THIS time against her family?

Now, we are mostly past those insecurities. We know each other. We are known by each other. Fully accepted. Fully loved. Moles, farts, body odor, and everything else are nothing compared to this love.

Eventful

Over the last fifteen years, we have gone from wide-eyed twenty one year old babes, just trying to figure out the world, to now having the privilege of sharing what wisdom we have learned with our children and others.

I was working at a bookstore, and Barbara was decorating pies at Marie Callender’s. Now, I am a CPA consultant and Barbara is an RN. I was skinny, now I am comfortably filled out.

We were a family of three, with our oldest a toddler. Now we are a family of six, with our oldest nearing high school graduation and our youngest in third grade.

I hope our next fifteen years is just as eventful. One of the most wonderful things about being married to my wife is that she is always willing to jump into a new adventure. At times it is with a bit of trepidation, but she does it any way. I love that about her!

After fifteen wonderful years together, I finally start to understand what Paul spoke of in Ephesians 5 when he compared the relationship of Jesus and the church to a husband and wife. When Jesus looks as us, He sees only love. Moles, farts, body odor, and everything else are nothing compared to His love.

How do you see the love of Christ reflected in your marriage?

Why I’m Proud to Wear My Superman Shirt

Image

Photo Credit: Klobetime (Creative Commons)

It was a hot summer Arizona day. The smell of barbecue burgers was making everyone wish it was lunchtime already. The joyful screams of children playing in the swimming pool filled the air as the adults lounged twenty feet away, enjoying the respite and the shade. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my daughter Cynthia jumping into the water. Then her body went limp in mid-air as she started into an absent seizure.

I threw my sandals aside, dashed to the pool and jumped in after her. I saw her body face-down, lifelessly floating downward in the pool. I grabbed her and rose to the surface fast as I could. As we neared the edge, Cynthia remained in her seizure. I pulled her out of the pool with me and cradled her in my arms for about three minutes, as she stared off into space.

As quickly as it had started, the seizure was over. She looked up at me, completely confused. “Poor girl,” I thought. “She has moved into her postictal state, and is probably done swimming today.”

Not exactly….she smiled and said, “Dad? Thanks for hugging me, and I love you too. Can I go back to swimming now?”

I let her go swim with her friends, and stayed on the side of the pool, silently weeping prayers of gratitude.

What would have happened if I had turned my head to the left instead of the right and missed her jump? What if nobody noticed and my daughter slowly sunk to the bottom of the pool?

There is a possibility that my daughter may have died if things had been different.

It’s not very often that we have true life-or-death moments in parenting, but this was one of those rare moments in time.

Every day I don my Superman shirt, I think of that warm summer day, and thank God that I had the chance to play a superhero for an afternoon.

Even now, just thinking of that causes all the emotions to flood back into my mind though. The panic. The fear. The relief. The gratitude. I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that a tear is running down my cheek as I write this.

When have you been a superhero?

 

Originally posted as Fear, Trust & Parenting 1 of 4

Graffiti & Family Fun Time For the Win?

Graffiti Run

 

I declared 2013 the year to overcome, but what does it mean to overcome? The truth is, I don’t really know, but I will share as I learn, and I hope you will do the same.

Yesterday I learned that overcoming means facing multiple fears at the same time: fear of extreme dirtiness, fear of 5K events, and fear of seizures in dangerous public places.

We signed up as a family for the Graffiti Run, which is a fun 5K event where you have loads of colorful chalk-based ‘graffiti’ thrown at you while you run, walk or hula hoop your way through the course. Did I mention I don’t like being dirty, and I am out of shape? These are the small fears though, compared to what happened on Saturday.

The day before the race, I had two distinct and unique types of seizures that I have not had in the past. So my wife and I had a decision to make. Will we allow caution to win the day? I could legitimately have had a significant seizure during the Graffiti Run, with disastrous results. Together, we decided that fun would lead the way.

I ran the race without any seizures, and as a family we had an absolutely amazing time. If we had chosen to be overcome by my seizures, we would have missed the sheer joy, color, exhaustion, bewilderment, and nasty tasting graffiti we all experienced yesterday.

I would be lying if I said it wasn’t stressful, but it was worth the risk. Overcoming always is.

What can you do right now to face multiple fears and overcome in your life?

There is No Plan Q, Not Even a Plan B

I have been dealing with epilepsy for 4 months, averaging 2 seizures a day. I expend energy every day trying to find the imaginary pattern to my seizures.

 Do I have a seizure when I sleep less?

Does it happen when I sleep in too late?

What if I drink too much milk?

What about coffee in the afternoon?

Does stress produce seizures?

How about flashing lights?

 The list goes on indefinitely.  Each day I come to the same conclusion – there is no discernible pattern right now. My epilepsy is a part of who I am and is not going away. I can stay up late. I can sleep in. I can drink coffee. I can be stressed. I can watch flashing lights. Or I can avoid all of these things, and it won’t matter.

Until we find the right medication mix there will be seizures. This goes against my natural inclination to be the fixer. I want to solve the problems that are placed before me. My personality is to identify multiple solutions to a scenario and plot the best way forward.

http://flic.kr/p/hELVX

Photo Credit: Pfly(http://flic.kr/p/hELVX)

Most people have a Plan B. I have a Plan Q for everything. But not with my epilepsy. There is not even a Plan A. I just survive, relying upon my God to get me through each day. Relying upon my family to keep me safe. Relying upon my friends to give me encouragement when I need it.

There is no Plan Q. I am learning each day to be more okay with that. I am growing to understand what it means to trust my God more. I am learning how to lean upon my family and friends more deeply. I am learning this is a good place to be.