Just another WordPress site

Category: personal

posts that are about my life

  • 27+ Years of Blessing

    Twenty seven years ago Libby and I were married in a school’s multi-purpose room with our friends and family looking on. It was a stressful but happy day. The morning was spent moving Libby’s belongings from the room she had been sharing with a friend to what was to be our new home…  someone needed to move into Libby’s old room ASAP. The afternoon was filled with all sorts of last minute errands to prepare for the wedding. We were one of the first couples in our peer group to get married. We didn’t have friends who would tell us the words we now repeat:

    Do you know then best thing about the wedding?  When it’s done, you are married!! That’s all that matters. All the things that go wrong during the wedding will become favorite memories that you will laugh about five years from now.

    A couple of hours before the wedding Libby returned to the house she had been living in to get cleaned up and get dressed. At the time she lived with 10-12 other women. The house had one good bathroom. Libby was so worried that with everyone getting ready for the wedding she wouldn’t get to take a shower. I assured her that her housemates would make sure she would be prepared in time for the wedding, and that included getting to take a shower. Libby did get to take a shower before the wedding.

    That night we were married, and started a grand adventure together. We were married pretty young… Libby was 21 and still working on her undergrad degree, I was just 22. Libby was fond of saying we were married young, maybe too young, but we choose well.

    In the first few years of our marriage were hard.  Most marriages to go through a difficult patch in the first few years  as the romantic dreams runs headlong into the realities of life together. There were a number of issues in our personal lives, and in life circumstances that seemed overwhelming. There were times when some of these issues seemed like they might crush us and I became resentful, even bitter. In time, God’s mercy became evident, and healing in both our lives took place. I was once again able to see Libby clearly, to understand how precious she was, and how blessed I was to have her in my life. I was delighted to discover that Libby cherish me more than I could imagine. Sara Groves described coming through such a time in her song A Different Kind of Happy. As time has passed, I have come to cherish Libby all the more.

    Five months ago I had to write something for Libby’s memorial program. How do you fit 30+ years of shared life and observations into a couple of paragraphs. How can you possibility figure out what is most important. Maybe someone who is a more gifted writer, who thinks more deeply that me could distill a life into a few paragraphs, but I sure couldn’t. When my dad passed ten years ago I wrote up a short tribute which I called lessons from dad. I wanted to write something like this for Libby because the memorial service program seemed to fall so short of capturing who Libby was… but I was unable to write anything. Today writing something down is coming a bit easier. This entry is my start to do justice to Libby’s memories. To start to pull together something that truly honors the women Libby was. I am sure there is much more to write.  The following are a few of Libby’s characteristics that I believe deserve to be mentioned with a few observations of how I was blessed by Libby.

    This evening a friend wished me “happy anniversary”. These two simple words helped me realize that I had spent the day thinking of Libby… but it wasn’t a weepy sad day, but rather a day where I found myself marveling at how much of a blessing Libby was.  It was a happy anniversary.

    Loyal & Sacrificial Love:

    During high school I  heard Carole King sing “You’ve Got a Friend“. I thought this was my anthem, though I am not sure I actually lived up to all the lyrics. Libby wasn’t particularly fond of the song, but it described her life well. No one could be a finer friend than Libby. She was deeply devoted to all her friends. No effort, no cost, no sacrifice was too large. She did not give up on people, nor would she be driven away, even if you gave her crap in return for the love.  I can think of a number of people that Libby continued to love, support, confront, comfort, even when they responded very badly. Over time she might become fatigued,  her words could take on an edge, she could become prickly, but she wouldn’t give up. Libby was fond of saying “I am on your team.” This statement often preceded statements which could be taken as an attack, but never were. Rather, Libby was willing to enter conflict, something she HATED, if it would help a friend. She was on your team. She would do anything if it would mean that you would be helped.

    I am fond of saying that I married up. No, not in the typical way of marrying someone with more money, education, status, or influence. I mean marrying someone who was better than me, more noble. Libby cherished me. To be honest, this still amazes me, and I am so thankful for her agreeing to marry me. Even when I hurt her deeply, she continue to love me, cherish me. She treated my heart is if it was the most precious object. Careful not to break it, yet willing to be be an attending nurse when painful surgery was required.

    My most vivid memory of this was a conversation we had over twenty years ago. I can still remember exactly where were we sitting. I wanted to make some life changes. She told me that she was sure I was about to make a huge mistake, I was running from things I should turn and face… but she would support me, love me, be at my side even if I continued to make stupid choices. As she expressed her commitment to love me, to stick by my side, it became clear to me what a cost she would pay to support me in a bad decision. I don’t know that I have ever felt so loved. Her love gave me the courage to turn and face the things I was running from. In the ultimate irony, her willingness to sacrifice herself, saved her from experiencing that suffering because her love turned my heart.

    Courage:

    Libby did not shy away from hard things. She was prepared to face them head on.  She might be scared, feel overwhelmed, but if she thought something needed to be done or faced, she would lean into the discomfort. On the surface she had remarkable courage, but her heart was even more courageous. Libby had a very deep negative streak.  She had a remarkable ability to identify anything that could possibly go wrong and some things that couldn’t but she could imagine them breaking as well. Yet in spite of these terrible, worse case possible outcomes, she would find the courage to take a risk and step out to do what she felt she was called to do.

    We would joke about what a good team we made. I am someone who typically assumes everything will work out, so I will sign up to take a risk without counting the cost. I would approach Libby and say “Lets give XYZ a try.” She would wrestle through all her fears and say “Ok.  Let’s do it.”.  I would be fine up until the the hard commitment was requirement, the preverbal “jump off the cliff moment” at which point I found myself saying “Oh my God, what have I gotten us into”. Libby would hold my hand, remind me why it was worth taking the risk and share with me all the issues she had to wrestle through. I would always find my spirit lighted as I laughed at some of the outrageous worse case scenarios she came up with. It was always easier to take a risk when you knew someone who loved you would be at your side.

    A Devotion to God:

    People operate on multiple levels and sometimes all those levels are synchronized well, sometimes things don’t work quite as your would expect.  On many levels, Libby was more devoted to following the Lord than anyone I knew. She desired to build her life around God, around Jesus. She continuously sought for ways to serve and to proclaim Him. Life was ministry.  She wanted to know the Lord intimately. The last ten years of her life she really benefits from the contemplative traditions she learned through Wellspring. She was devoted to practicing listening prayer. She longed to see the Lord clearly, to follow Him, to dance in His presence. Along side of this, Libby has a life long struggle with depression which often made it hard for her to find the joy in her Lord that she desired. One of the great comforts I had when she passed was that she is now seeing the Lord face to face, freed from the effects of sin, able to joyously worship her maker, to dance in His presence.

    Libby’s love for me made me want to cherish her. If I was married to nearly anyone else, they would have become an idol to me. Someone that was more important than anything, including following God. I have seen how that can go so badly wrong in other people’s lives. Thankfully Libby was more devoted to the Lord than to me. When my focus shifted, she pointed me right back to  God. To please her, I needed to please the Lord. Libby was such a perfect provision for me. It was through Libby’s example that I found myself drawn to God. It was through her going to Heaven that I found my heart drawn to God in a new and deeper way.

    I deeply miss Libby and find myself sometimes struggling with loneliness. It would be tempting to try and fill this longing with another person… but I am thankful that hasn’t happened. These last few months without Libby has helped me see more clearly God’s love, and provided me with a growing appreciating of how He cherishes me, how He cherishes all of us, and why Libby was so devoted. I am embarrassed to admit, in the past I might have traded closeness with God for a person who would cherish me as Libby did. I couldn’t do that now. The thrill of seeing God work, the comfort He has provided my heart has been so great. I couldn’t give that up. If there was any chance that a human relationship would take that away, I wouldn’t be interested. For a bit I feared this meant I would never again have a relationship that was as intimate as what I had with Libby. But I know this doesn’t have to be the case. I have Libby’s example. With prayer, with grace, with daily seeking the Lord, it’s possible to love someone dearly, to have them love you, and at the same time be deeply in love with our God. There is a lot I don’t know about the future, but one thing I know, that the Lord is slowly growing my heart, drawing me closer, I am growing more devoted to Him. I find that I am a bit more like Libby each day which makes my heart glad.

    Last vacation before cancer returned. Grand Tetons

  • Being Uncomfortable, Student and Teacher

    I would notice The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer every time I visited my favorite bookstore. I didn’t picked it up… I am not a teacher. In my mind, teachers are those brave souls who stands in front of students in a school, or in front of the congregation of a church and present a well structured, well scripted stream of information that enlightens and enlivens the audience. I have periodically found myself in a situation where I was called on to formally teach, but only because there was no one else available, not because I am particularly gifted or felt a great desire.
    I don’t remember what ultimately led me to pick up The Courage to Teach, but I am glad I did. Rarely has a book so resonated with me. As I read Palmer’s book, I realized that teaching isn’t restricted to something done in front of a crowd of people. Teaching can also be a collaborative activity in a small group, or even one to one. I realized I aspire to be a teacher in improvisational settings: talking with a coworker about a hard problem they can’t solve by themselves, with my daughter exploring a life choice, or in the aisle of REI discussing the effectiveness of various insect repellents based on scientific data.

    Some teaching is light and easy, little more than passing on information. While this can be enjoyable, I love teaching that can be transformative, that has significance. There is a section of The Courage to Teach which talked about how deep truths that bring about transformation are often paradoxes. Hard to understand, and uncomfortable to sit within. Palmer starts this section saying:

    Holding the tension of paradox so that our students can learn at deeper levels is among the most difficult demands of good teaching… understand that the tension that comes when I try to hold a paradox together is not hell-bent on tearing me apart. Instead, it is a power that wants to pull my heart open to something larger than myself.

    I find myself reflecting on this process, and find that today, I am more a student than a teacher. I am an impatience man. I don’t like paradoxes. I don’t like unanswered questions. I don’t like a multitude of opportunities. I like the definite: decisions, direction, in a word, closure. The more important the issue, the closer an issue is to my heart, the more quickly I want resolution. Resolution rarely come as quickly as I wish. If we are blessed, this movement of the heart might be accomplished in a few hours, but often it’s days, months, years, sometimes even decades.

    Over the last several years, I have hoped to make a vocational change. To find a way to spend more time focused on people, and less on products and technology, to be a teacher in a small setting. This transition has seemingly been blocked. I wonder if this was because I was not ready to be a teacher, rather I needed to first learn to be a good student. Through the lose of Libby God has been teaching me how to be quiet, how to listen, how to be patient, to be a student of life. I still have much to learn, but at least in my own life, I am learning not to rush through things too quickly, even when it’s uncomfortable.

    I hope to be a good teacher some day, but I know I have a long way to go. A good teacher is willing to suffer along side the student as the learning process unfolds. In fact, a good teacher often needs to help the student by helping them stay in an uncomfortable place. While I have become more willing to sit in these hard places in my own life, I struggle greatly when people I care about are suffering. I want to “fix the problem”. I will tend to rush them because I am uncomfortable, not because it is what will be the best for them. I pray that I learn to sit with others in those difficult places, to listen in silence while those hard paradoxes opens hearts, to support them in love while their hearts struggle and then finds true healing.

    Last Monday I would have said that I am making progress, that maybe I am starting to learn what it takes to be a good teacher. That afternoon I chatted with a good friend and found that I still have so much to learn. I had a expectation that I would be helping my friend. Instead I didn’t listen, and said things that were completely unhelpful, exposing how off I was. The critique “Waiting your turn to speak is not the same thing as listening” strikes very close to home. After the conversion I found myself wondering if there was any hope, would I ever learn to listen? Could I help others? Thankful, I believe there is hope.

    First came a question the next day. “When you speak before listening is that the end of it, or do you recognize your mistake and step back?” The previous day I had thought myself to be ready to teach and share something useful, but I completely missed what was happening in my friend’s life. Yet, the story didn’t end there. I was able to recognize I was missing something. I was able to recognize that rather than being a teacher in that moment, I was a student being taught through my friend’s life and words. In the end, I believe I was able to offer some encouragement and help while I was learning from them.

    Next came an essay at the end of the book Spiritual Formation which discussed Henri Nouwen’s view of spiritual formation. Nouwen saw spiritual life is a journey, as a series of spiritual movements from this quality to that, from things that enslave and destroy to liberation and life. Nouwen’s books often articulate these movements and highlight that the transformation is brought about by the Spirit. This suggests that just recognizing the immediate movement and responding to it is sufficient. I found this comforting, because it’s more about being in the moment that building of one thing on top of another. The following was the description of how Nouwen’s approach to spiritual formation changed:

    In his early years as a priest who offered spiritual direction and supervision to seminarians and members of religious orders, Nouwen counseled others to follow the classical disciplines in order to climb the ladder of divine ascent in progressive stages of unification. Climbing Jacob’s ladder, step by step, toward spiritual perfection is a common image and motif in classical stage theory. Nouwen had read John of the Ladder, the sixth-century ascetic who sought perfection in the desert, and Nouwen despaired of ever reaching the top. By the time he arrived at Notre Dame as a professor of pastoral psychology, he had turned the ladder of ascent on its side and taught spiritual formation as a series of horizontal movements of the heart, back and forth, that require daily devotion and discipline, with the goal of human wholeness rather than divine perfection.

    The third encouragement came the following day from a TED video by Brian Goldman entitled Doctors make mistakes. Can we talk about that?. Goldman is calling for a radical change in the medical community: to acknowledge that being perfect, that never making mistakes is not possible. That the community should embrace mistakes and learn from them, and find better ways for people to work together as a team. Goldman’s talk made me think of a conversation with a dear friend who is an extremely gifted counselor. In talking about the counseling process she said “It’s not a set of skills, techniques or formal education. More important that any skill is to love the person in front of you, and to listen with an expectation that God is speaking into the situation.” She often tells the people she is not concerned about being right, rather she is concerned that together, they can find what is true. She has great confidence that this can happen, because God is in the room, providing light and love.

    Finally, as I was driving home I found myself listening to the song A Different Kind of Happy by Sara Groves which speaks about how good it is to look honestly at life with someone else, how sharing together transforms lives and relationships. When I listen to this song, the first thing that comes to mind is Libby and how much I appreciated sharing life with her. Libby is gone from this earth, but I still experience the sharing of life. The Bible talked about how all who follow Jesus are part of the “Body of Christ”. That a hallmark of true faith is loving one another. I am so grateful to have experienced this profoundly in the last few months. Much of the love and support has come from people who are part of my local church, people who live in the bay area. But there are people who live more distantly that have helped me experience that different kind of happy. Dear friends who called / visited from Columbus, Phoenix, Boston, DC, and Anaheim. Timely words from friends spread across the world. A text message, Skype or email that came when I most needed help. Words from Russia, China, Taiwan, Singapore, India, and Thailand.

    My take away? There is hope. It’s possible or be a student, a learner, a teacher, because God is good. He cares for us and will lead us to truth and wholeness if we humbly turn our eyes to Him.

    But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. — James 1:19-20

  • Expanding Music Listening Options – Spotify Cool

    Earlier I wrote a bit about how I am being a bit more intentional in what I am listening to… but I still like variety. I discover new music the old fashion way: recommendations from friends or reviews in magazines like Paste. When I learn of a new artist I might be interested in, I search YouTube for samples to listen to. If I like the music, I order a physical CD. When the CD arrives, I rip it using a lossless codecs, and then play it through our stereo or one of our Apple i-devices.

    I have known about Spotify for awhile as well as other music stream services. The idea of a HUGE library of music which is immediately accessible for no money is very attractive, but I am fairly picky about audio quality. I knew the audio quality from all the streaming services wouldn’t be as good as my personal collection, so I didn’t really give any of them a try. This weekend I was feeling rather nostalgic… I wanted to listen to some music I hadn’t listened to in years. Some of that music is on records or CDs owned by friends who live thousands of miles away, some of it is on records that I haven’t been able to play for many years. I decided to give Spotify a try since I had a number of friends who seem to love it. Spotify didn’t have all the music I was looking for, but they had a lot of it. It’s very convenient to use, just type into the search box what you are look for, and the results are grouped by song title, artists and album. Select an artist and you get a list of their most popular tracks on Spotify and a list of albums with tabs for a brief bio and a list of “Related Artists” which could use some work but is a good start. The audio quality wasn’t as good as the CDs I had ripped lossless, but it was good enough that I could enjoy listening to the music that I wouldn’t otherwise have had. I would recommend checking it out if you haven’t yet.

    Spotify has a bunch of “social” features. It’s pretty easy to make information about what you are listening to available to other Spotify users, or to the larger community via Facebook or Twitter. I like the idea of being able to see what my friends are listening to as a way to discover new music, but I am not sure I am comfortable broadcasting my playlists. For the time being I have turned off automatic sharing on the preferences panel. Maybe I will be a bit more comfortable when more people share their playlists.

    What’s truly cool, is this can all be done using their free service.  The ads are a bit annoy, seems like 30 seconds every 15-60 minutes. So hard the ads have been only about music and one ad for Mini Cooper. For people who are happy listening to music through computer speakers go ahead and stop reading now.

    Besides the free service level, Spotify offers an unlimited level which frees you from the ads, and premium. Premium is $10/month and offers higher audio quality, supports streaming to Sonos, Squeezebox, Boxee, and the Spotify app that runs on numerous smartphones and tablets. I started with with free service, and then signed up for the free 30 day trial of the premium service.

    There is a fairly complete article about how to stream spotify wirelessly to your stereo. They are missing two variant/options: use Airplay ready stereo equipment rather than an Apple device, and using a smart phone or tablet rather than a computer to provide the audio stream. I am already using an Apple Airport Express WiFi device to enable iTunes to stream music to our stereo, so a slight modification of “Option A” from the above article was the obvious winner. My modification is that rather than feeding the stereo directly from the audio jack on the Airport Express which has fairly marginal audio quality, we are using the optical output which feeds a DAC with bit-perfect music. So long as the DAC has a good anti-jitter circuitry, the audio quality is hugely better through the external DAC with both lossy and lossless sources.

    Airfoil is a nicely done piece of software. It lets any audio on the computer to be sent to any Airplay device. This is something Apple should have built into the OS. Oh well. The free Airfoil client for i-Devices not only lets you listen to the audio stream, but gives you some basic controls (pause/start, skip forward, skip back)  with both iTunes and Spotify. A nice touch.

    A few words about the Spotify software for smart phones and tablets. The app is a bit clunky, but it works. There is something kind of cool about having access to a huge (>13M tracks) library from a pocket size iPhone. I tried using my iPhone plugged into the Tivoli PAL which produces a portable system which can play tunes for hours anywhere that has a network connection. Way different from the days of records which some members of the younger generation hasn’t seen (funny video)?! Then I realized that the Spotify iPhone app can send its audio via Airplay, and since everything is living in the digital domain, this will be the same audio quality as using the computer to drive the stereo in our living room. Better yet, using the iPhone means that the Spotify controls can be in my hand, rather than on the screen of a computer which is in a different room. Now the dilemma… is the convenient, no ads,  and better (but not ideal) audio quality worth the premium service fee. In past years, the answer would have said yes… but right now I am working to keep my burn rate down, so I am not completely sure.

  • Unemployed. Yeah!

    In June I left Stanford and joined Simply Hired. It was a great move for me.  I was going to be leading three teams: big data, service/ops engineering, and IT.  Two of these areas I know well, the third, big data I had some background, but I was going to need to work at getting up to speed.  It’s always great when your employer is paying you to learn, especially if it is in an interesting area. This was a great opportunity for me.

    I really liked what I saw in the company. Coworkers that were easy to work with. No bureaucracy… a huge improvement from Stanford. Several times I made suggestions about things I had no responsibility for. The response was always “Oh, that’s a good idea.  We will give that a try before the week ends.”  Simply Hired had been running for a number of years, but in many ways it was like a one year start-up.  I think this is because several months before I was hired the company’s exec staff started the process to reboot the company, improving focus and realign staff which included bring in some senior folks to help mentor and direct a fairly young team.

    When I joined Simply Hired, we hoped Libby has several more years of life.  The plan/hope was to work a couple of years, and then stop working to be with and care for Libby. Over the summer Libby’s health failed much more quickly than expected. I found myself frequently needing to dash out to check on Libby at home, trips to the doctors office, or the ER.  I found my coworkers supportive and understanding. When it was clear that we were looking at months (turned out weeks) not years, they granted me a leave of absence, even though I had been out of the office more than in, and they were very flexible about bring me back to work.  But after careful consideration, we all thought rather than waiting for me to return (which might not happen), it would be best for a clean separation.

    The only problem now is when people ask the question “Who are you, what do you do?”, I don’t have a clean answer. I think for many of us, a big part of identity comes through our job. I was talking with some people I just met at church a couple of weeks ago.  I was asked about myself. My immediate answer went to work, and it sounded awkward.  “Well, ah, I am trying to quit my job, but it hasn’t happened yet.”  Well, I have succeeded, so now what do I put on my “card”? Unemployed?  Stay-at-Home Dad?  In Transition?  Middle-Life Crisis Dude?  Grieving Windower?  Seeker?  Nothing really captures the full picture.  For the time being, I think “Stay-at-Home Dad” is the easiest for people to grasp and is the single biggest focus, but that is just one piece of the next year.

    Many people have asked me about my plans.  The short summary is that I am going to avoid “work” until 2013. We are blessed to be in a situation where doing this is not a financial strain.  In 2012 I am going to focus on taking care of Helen, taking care of myself, figuring out how to do all the things Libby used to do, and spend some time really exploring what I want to do in the second half of my life. Twice in the last eight years I tried to leave the high tech start-up world to do something radically different. Both times I found myself right back doing the same sorts of things I have been doing for years.  In 2013 what will I be doing?  Not sure yet.  I have a year to dream, explore, experiment. Could be I discover (as I have in the past) that I am made to do the work I have been doing all along and I find myself right back in the world of high tech start-ups with a new energy and renewed vision.  Then again, maybe it’s time for a change: maybe doing something with an NGO, some sort of full time ministry, or  back in school preparing for a completely different career. It’s a bit scary, but also exciting. Losing Libby has been very hard, but it’s also been an encouragement to spend the rest of my days doing things that I deeply love and believe in.  Kevin Kelly’s interview about living as if you only had six months has been a real challenge to me. I have been asking the question what if I knew I would only live 6 month, 1 year, 2 years.  What would I do?  How would it change my life?  I don’t have any definitive answers yet… but I am pretty sure at least a few things will change.

  • Exercise and Modern Society

    In the last few years I have not been taking care of myself.  Libby was often needing to go to treatment or a doctor’s appointment several times each week.  Adding one more trip seemed too much, so I just never got around to scheduling appointments with my doctor, dentist, etc. I wasn’t eating as well as I should. My backpacking trips drop to almost zero because I wasn’t comfortable leaving Libby for more than a day.  The only exercise I got was riding my bike to/from work.

    I have known that I should be taking better care of myself. There is good evidence about how diet effects both the quality and quantity of life.  There has also been a lot of research into the effects of exercise. There is a fascinating screen cast about how 30 minutes of walking makes a big difference in people’s health. Click the link because it’s really interested, and for some people, I hope life changing. There is Growing Evidence of Links Between Exercise and Mental Acuity. There is also well documented evidence that exercise helps control both depression and anxiety. I have seen some of these effects in my own life. I find my mind sharper after I have exercised and I feel more ready to face the day. Several years ago I developed a habit of taking 1-2 days personal retreats when life seemed to be getting away from me. These retreats would be solo backpacking trips where I was walking 20+ miles each day. This is a fairly significant physical workout. Often times, solutions to problems I have been struggling with for weeks would jump into my mind as I was walking. Part of this was likely the solitude, but I think the physical activity played a part in this as well.

    After Libby went home to her Lord, Helen made it very clear that I was to take care of myself because she had no desire to be an orphan. Her concern broke my heart and gave me the motivate to get serious.  I did a personal assessment and I realized I was in pretty poor shape. I decided I needed to visit my doctors and dentist, start eating better, lose some weight, and I really needed to get more exercise. I wanted to believe that my daily life provided me with enough exercise, but clearly it had not been working out. I hate the idea of exercise for exercise sake, but I have the need for some serious catch-up.

    So, for the first time in my life, I joined a gym.  I met one of their trainers and got a basic assessment.  I was in even worse shape that I realized. I learned that my scale at home was under reporting my weight by eight pounds. It’s going to be some serious work to get to where I should be.  As I surveyed the instruments of torture contained within the gym’s walls I realized I didn’t have any idea how to use the machines, and certainly no idea how to design a workout to get back into shape. I decided to sign up for several sessions with a trainer so I wouldn’t break myself.  I suppose I could use some iPhone app like iMuscle or GAIN, or follow something simple like Vic Magary’s minimalist fitnesss guide, but having a human being who could watch what I was doing seemed like a good idea.
    I have been going to the gym six days a week since the end of November.  The trainer has kept me pushing to my limits but not going so far that I break myself. There have been days that I am not sure that I could turn the steering wheel to drive the car home from the gym, or when I got home I wasn’t sure I could lift a glass filled with water to my mouth, but I was able to do these things.  I hope and pray that in several months I will be in reasonable enough shape that the gym won’t need to take up as much time and energy as it is right now. I can see progress: my heart no longer continues to race for tens of minutes after I stop exercising and I have dropped more than a percent of body fat. I have also noticed that I am feeling better, and it seems like it’s easier to concentrate. Maybe there is something to the healthy body / mind connection.
    Enter curmudgeon model… seem to have been doing that a lot in these recent blogs:

    When I was a kid I wasn’t into team sports, but I was active.  Yes, there was a lot of reading, building electronics, and hang out with friends, but I also walked or rode my bike as transportation, using manual tools to build things, climbed trees, and regularly went backpacking/climbing.  I wasn’t a jock, but I was fit.  Somehow all of those muscles are gone.  I suppose it was life getting more busy.  Well, that, and I dose of simple laziness. I also think a major contributor is that more and more life seems to be spent interacting with electronic devices rather than the real world.

    This has gotten me thinking about exercise in modern society.  Many of my coworkers regularly go to the gym just as I am now.  We pay for the privilege to do hard work.  Often times, we are doing this in somewhat dark smelly places, even before the sun has come up. Some of us go beyond that and pay someone to push us further and harder than we think we can go. I find myself imagining in a conversation with one of the jews from Moses’ time.  I tell them what I am doing and they say:


    אז תנו לי לקבל את זה מצר, אתה בוחר להיות עבד לאדון עבד במשך מספר שעות ביום.
    אתה לא צריך לעשות את זה. אז אתה נותן כסף כדי לעשות לך את זה השתגעת

    alright, maybe not that (any Hebrew I knew when I was 13 is completely gone), this was google translate attempt of going english -> hebrew from the text

    So let me get this strait, you are choosing to be a slave to a slavemaster for several hours a day.  You don’t have to do this.  You are giving them money to do this to you?  Are you crazy?

    There was a time than nearly everyone engaged in hard physical labor in the course of their daily lives. They didn’t have power tools, electric kitchen appliances, cars, etc. The day was spent moving.   Muscles got built from daily activities. People looked forward to when the hard labor would end, and they could rest. Often people dreams of jobs that didn’t require them to have to engage in such back breaking work.  These days, many of us spend our whole day of “work” sitting.  Maybe we get up and walk around the office a bit to talk with people.  Some people don’t bother doing this, Skype, Jabber, or AIM remove the need to move.  While we are sitting around our physical bodies are getting weaker and weaker.  When work is done can we enjoy our leisure?  Nope.  We now need to get through traffic (sitting in our cars) to get to a gym, where we pay for the freedom to exercise in the comfort of a gym.  Something seems a bit off here.

    I find myself wondering how we can back to lives that are more integrated and don’t have us sitting around so much. There are things like the sit/stand desks, but that doesn’t see enough to me. I don’t have any great ideas. Maybe something will come to me, or maybe one of you have some ideas.  Care to share?

    As for me, I am going to the gym for awhile. I have a Costco $319/2years membership to 24hour fitness.  The money has been spent, so I should take advantage of it, or it just goes to waste. If I had done a month to month membership it would have been easy to rationalizing quitting the gym after a couple of months “to save money”.  I have also resolved never to let myself get back into such an awful state but also not to let exercise get out of control. I have see many people who try to build strength beyond what is needed or their bodies could handle. Rather than getting healthier, they are limping around with injuries from their excercise. A good cautionary tale was just in the NYT about how yoga can wreck your body. Well, it’s off to the gym now for my next round of torture.

  • Romans 8 and Christmas Dinner

    In the last couple of weeks I have been thinking a lot about the Bible’s teaching about how we, as Christians are called to live.  I have spent a good bit of time looking at Romans 5-8.  At the core of this passage is our inability to be good or to do anything truly right on our own. Thankfully, God is at work… he forgives us, covers our sins, gives us a new nature, a new heart, a new source of power. This is completed work, though we often try to live as if we are in control and have the abilities in ourselves. When we try to do things from our own strength we will see failure as is described in Romans 7… the harder we try, the worse it is.

    Romans 8:6 says “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set of the spirit is life and peace”.  So what is the mind set on the flesh.  Is it planning to do bad things?  No, it’s much more. It’s reasoning from our own perspective, trying to control, trying to justify ourselves, trying to do life without God. It’s charting our own course, trying to fix things, make things ok.  Doing this always ends up in a mess.

    I have a couple of friends who have really been struggling with some hard issues.  They need to understand life in the spirit rather than the flesh.  I recently finished reading Becoming a True Spiritual Community by Larry Crabb which talked about how the community can embrace and love someone working through this.  Crabb talks about living in the downstairs (flesh) or upstairs (spirit).  Crabb’s book really encouraged me to come along side these friends.  I have been looking through the rest of our books, trying to find something that would be good for my friends to read, something that would help them to move from a “Yes, I have read Romans 5-8 100s of times” to understanding what they have read.  I know that just a book can’t make that happen, only God can, but often books can be used by God to break through.  Of the books we own, I found that The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee seemed to be the best, so I re-read it, to be sure it would be good for my friends as well as to grow my understanding.  I found The Normal Christian Life even better than when I first read it. I wonder if the first time I read it I was doing the “Check.  This is a doctrine I know” rather than letting it really challenge me and grow my understanding. I think it is the single best book I have read about Romans 5-8.

    Since I have been thinking about “life in the spirit -vs- flesh” so much,  I thought I was understanding it pretty well.  Christmas day came.  This is our first Christmas without Libby.  I was intent on doing as much as I could to keep up family traditions, to make the day as normal as I could for Helen.  Almost from the start of the day we were off track. Helen woke up late.  She decided to skip open stockings and go strait to breakfast. We did make waffles for breakfast, but she didn’t want anything else. After opening presents she was still tired and wanted to take a nap.  By the time Helen was up from her nap I was feeling pretty stressed. The minor issue was that while our tradition of going to the Redwood was still possible, but it was going to have to be Henry Cowell, not the preferred Muir Woods.

    The more difficult issue was that I was only going to have 1-1.5 hours to prepare a complicated dinner than I have never made before. I had been worrying about making this dinner for several days. We have a standard Christmas menu that Libby developed over the last 26 years.  Most of the recipes come from the Silver Palate Cookbook.  Not the most complicated recipes, but not simple: orange carrot soup, blueberry chicken, green beans with cashews & parsley, fresh bread, scallop potatoes, chocolate mousse.  Ack!  I couldn’t find the recipe for scallop potatoes, so I had to scramble and find something. Cook’s Illustrated came to my rescue with their 2005 holiday scallop potato recipe.  All of these recipes take a fair bit of labor.  I felt pressure to get to the cooking, but I really wanted to go to the redwoods.  So I push us out the door.  We got in the car and I stepped on the gas hard… maybe speeding the journey by a minute.

    On the drive I thought I had calmed down.  Helen and I started to talk about the week, what we were thinking about, what we had been doing. I was talking with Helen about some of the things I was seeing in Romans, and how I wanted to share them with a couple of friends who didn’t seem to be understanding how it worked.  They were still laboring under “the law” described in Romans 7… trying to fix things that they weren’t capable of fixing.

    Well… about half way through the drive Helen told me during the day I have gone from “Bad Dad” to “Worse Dad”.  Ouch! As we talked it became clear “bad dad” cared more about executing all the family traditions than he did how his precious daughter was feeling. “Worse dad” was getting angry at his daughter for standing between him and successful execution of his plans.  Ugh!!  Here I was, talking about how important the perspective in Romans was, while completely missing the point in my own life.  Rather than “the law” being something from the Bible, it was my list of expectations for Christmas.

    Thankfully, there was time to recover. Helen and I laughed about it. We had a great walk and talk among the redwoods.  While we were walking and then on the return drive I completely forgot about the need to make dinner, I wasn’t feeling any pressure.

    Once we got home I got to work.  The food prep went faster than it should have. We ended up having dinner on time. The meal turned out well.  Helen (and I) thought the the scalloped potatoes were better than any we had made before.. but how could they not be good with 3 cups of heavy cream. The only problem was that I forgot to half the chocolate mousse recipe.  This turned out to be a blessing.  I was able to take mousse for eight over to the Taylors, have enough for Helen and I, some of her friends, and another family of five. Christmas wasn’t the happiest day ever, but we were able to be content, and celebrate the birth of the most important person who ever lived.  Thank you God.

  • Gamification of Life

    Over the last few years I seen a growing interest in gamification of life.  There is part of me that wants to say the whole idea was silly.  Who needs their real life to be turned into a video game where you are accumulating points and badges. Shouldn’t we direct our lives based on results rather than some artificial scoring systems? Earning virtual points isn’t going to change behavior… or is it?

    I have been following work happening at places like the The Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford that looks at how interaction with technology can change people’s thinking or behavior.  In the last few months I have seen in a small way how this can work out in my own life. I am convinced that we want to shape people by intrinsic rewards, not badges, but that the badges and scores can be good metrics which reveals an a clear manner project people are making.

    My family owns two cars.  A Prius and a Passat.  If you would have asked me a few months ago, I would have said that Passat is more fun to drive: it has better acceleration, better handling, more comfortable seats.   When I drive the Passat, I tend to push it a little bit.  Take the turns tight, accelerate hard when it’s safe, push to make lights.  I tend to drive in a mildly aggressive manner. My attitudes reflect my driving style.  I find that I am a bit impatient, wanting to go quickly, I get annoyed with drivers that are going more slowly than they need or seem indecisive.

    Prius has it’s own kind of fun.  Trying to get the best MPG score I can.  Now my Passat records mpg numbers as well, both average, and instantaneous… but these numbers don’t really help you maximize your milage.  The Prius though, will shown your accumulated score (mpg since the trip was resent – I do it after each fill up), it has a bar graph of current mpg, charge in the battery, and how much energy you are putting into (or taking out) of the drive system with a line indicating where the car will likely switch from running on battery to starting the gas engine and a second line indicating when you are switching from running the engine efficiently (eco) to burning fuel (full power). As I started to drive the Prius I noticed that I was trying maximize my mph score. I would accelerate more slowly.  I was paying more aware of how traffic was flowing to minimize the amount of braking I had to do, and worked to keep the braking in the range that the regenerative system would capture energy.  I found myself adjusting my speed on the road to maximize milage.  Rather than pushing to squeak through a light before it changed, I found myself considering fuel economy introduced by the light, that is, could I make it through the light on eco which would result in a better score than having to come to a complete stop.  I have also noticed that I am a bit more calm and patient, because “the game” rewards that.  Wow, it seems like both my behavior and attitude were being effected by having a score.  Of course, I told myself it was just about being economical and being a good stewart.  This is why I was driving the Prius rather than the Passat.

    Well… maybe not. One week I noticed my score was down to 40.2mpg, lower than my normal 45-48mpg score.  As the score stayed low and I watched the game time running out (fuel meter was approaching the half way mark) I knew that I needed to do something, or the score would be low when the game ended (next fill up). I found myself considering taking an unnecessary trip on the freeway so I could improve my score.  Oh my, I was caring more about the score than using resources wisely. I didn’t take the unnecessarily trip, but I was tempted to.  A note to designers: make sure you are instrumenting that right things, or you might discover you are encouraging the wrong behaviors.

    I now find myself wondering, am I driving the Prius because it is more economical, or because it’s fun and I am trying to get good scores?  Or maybe it just because it’s a nicer car with a sun roof and a plug for my iPhone. Every now and again I will express joy or sorrow at my score.  Helen laughs at me and says that she is going to get me a driving video game… but why would I need one?  I use one every day, and it gets me (and her) the places we need to go.  My just wish Toyota had the Prius record the top 10 scores like a good video game.  Even better, top score with any Prius’ in the neighborhood.  There would be plenty of players since Prius in our neighborhood are as common as pickup trucks in Texas.  My top score for a full tank of gas is 53.5mpg.  What’s yours?  🙂

  • Meeting God in the Empty Place – Turning Loneliness to Solitude

    Libby and I used to talk nearly every night.  Often for a couple of hours. The topics varied greatly: basic logistical issues, smoothing over relational friction, concerns weighing on our hearts, big ideas, silly dreams.  Honestly the topics almost didn’t matter, it was having someone to share life with.  It’s been three months since we had a good two way conversation. The last couple of weeks before Libby went home to God she wasn’t really up to talking.  More than anything, I miss those evening conversations.

    When Libby passed from this world it felt like a huge hole was ripped in my soul.  There was an emptiness.  For a week I was numb, but then I felt a huge hunger.  I wanted the hole to go away.  I wanted it to be filled up. I knew that that the emptiness wasn’t going to be filled anytime soon, but that didn’t make the desire, the longing any less.  Ironically, it took more than two months for me to recognize the emptiness has another name, loneliness.

    Each time I talk with someone, it seems like a small bit of the hole is filled in.  Just a shovel full of filling for a 500k sq ft building foundation. At this rate I will die of old age before the hole is fully filled, but after each interaction with someone I have a sense of hope.  That it won’t always hurt this much.  That the emptiness will someday be filled.

    Something more important has come to me though… I have found that I can sit in the emptiness.

    I don’t have to rush out and find someone to fill the hole, nor do I need to throw myself into activity to distract myself.  The emptiness is not pleasant, but it can be transformative.   I can see more clearly my longings. I can hear and seeing God a more clearly and God reveals what I truly believe, what’s in my heart. It’s only when the heart is revealed that healing and lasting change can happen.

    God is not filling the emptiness, but He is meeting me there.  In these moments, the loneliness is transformed into solitude.  No longer is the focus on what is lacking, but a time of looking with God’s eyes. I wish I have better words to describe it, but I don’t.  I can share one of the small ways I have see this change in the last week.  I am very aware of how much I miss Libby and how important community and relationships are.  I am particularly aware than I want to spend time with people who are comforting and encouraging. Even when I am not with these friends, I end up thinking about them.  Typically wondering if it would be ok to call them, or if I am going to make myself a pest by calling too frequently.  As I am pulled from loneliness to solitude, my focus chances.  Rather than being focused on my lack, the loneliness, I find myself thinking about how I can bless others, to love and serve them.  What are their needs, what is God doing in their lives, is there some way to be a blessing to them.  I am seeing God’s heart and it is changing me and I can feel at peace.  I am able to love, not because I hope to get something in return, but because I know that I am loved by God.

    I have wondered, if God is with me always, why do I feel lonely, why not a constant sense of peace.  Couldn’t God fill that hole Himself once and for all.  I think the answer is He could, but He won’t, because it won’t be good.  Partly because we need to sense the emptiness before we stop and turn toward Him.  But I don’t think that’s the only reason.  We were designed to be in relationship with God AND with other people.  We are made for community.  Desiring people in our lives is good. The mistake we make is to try and control how it happens, to arrange things so the hunger is fed rather than trust God to take care of us as we participate in community.

    We are called to follow Jesus’ example.  Choice to love and serve those around us.  Yes, we should welcome the companionship of others, even to ask for it, but ultimately, we have trust that the Lord will take care of us.  To live with open hands, welcoming God to works in our lives. Jesus was deeply involved with people.  He spent most of his waking hours with others.  He would also take time to withdraw, to find quiet times with His father.  But even with perfect commune with His Father, and empowered by the Spirit Jesus experience the difficulties of life just as we do.  We see him cry.  He experienced loneliness, lose, and pain. This used to be a mystery to me.  If you could see God clearly, wouldn’t everything be ok.  Wouldn’t seeing God’s goodness be like a fire that burns everything else away, leaving you in a state of constant awe: content, even happy?  The answer is no.  So long as we live in this broken world, there will be loneliness, pain, suffering, in a word, sorrow. It will be set right, but not yet.  Anyone who is responding to Lord will feel these things.  How could we not because things are not right.

    This is a painful season of life, but it is also exciting because I can see how my life is being changed. While I want the loneliness to end, the hunger to be sated, I find myself appreciating how loss is pull me toward God, and how the loneliness is being transformed into solitude. I believe that in time, much of the acute loneliness will pass, but I pray that the solitude that grows from it will never waver.

    Update 2011/12/30: I just realized that loneliness to solitude is the first section of Henri Nouwen’s excellent book Reach Out.  I would recommend checking this book out for a much clearly discussion of this transition.

  • The Value and Cost of Variety

    I like variety.  This shows up in  in the food I eat, the music I listen to, the books I read.  I enjoy when my world expands, to have new and different experiences. I believe there is a lot of good in this, and yet, I found myself wondering about the cost.  Less than 200 years ago life was much less mobile, there were far fewer occupations, and even fewer options for which occupation someone might have the opportunity to engage in.  The community you were part of was bound by geography without cars that greatly extend the geographic sphere one could regularly interact with.  The variety of “stuff” one could own was much smaller than it is today.  It might be a shock to some today, but people survived, some even thrived.  Do I wish to return to the 19th or earlier time.  No.  But I do wonder what we have lost in our variety filled world.

    This morning I woke up with the song Love is a Worth Cause by Sara Groves running through my mind, my heart.  It was a good way to wake up and it lifted my spirit. Waking up with a song on my lips has become somewhat common in the last few weeks.  The songs have varied a bit,  a few  other songs by Sara Grove and a number of classic Christmas hymns.  Why is this happening?  I think it is likely repetition, a parring down of variety.
    If I listened to all the music on our server eight hours per day, I could go more than half a year without hearing a single song repeated.  If I add in the possibilities from Spotify, Pandora, or the radio, the possibilities grow expotentially. In reality, I don’t listen to everything in our collection as one big shuffle.  My family found the jump between genres too jarring sometimes, so normally I am using a play list which excludes genre that are at the “extremes”, so we would go a mere two months without a repeat.  This is still a long time, meaning that it’s unlikely for any one song to have a significant impact.
    In the last few months I have generally not been listening to one of these large play lists.  Instead, I have constructed a couple of very short play lists.  One list is a collection of songs that have helped me grieve and/or see hope. The other is a list of Christmas songs.  Rather than thousands of songs, there are tens of songs.  Rather than hearing a song once every few months, I am hearing the same songs several times a day.
    I believe that the repetition is causing the songs to get lodged deeper in my heart and mind.  Once embedded, the songs have had an effect on my perspective, they have influenced my thinking. I am starting to think that music is food for the spirit and exercise for the heart.  When athletes are in training they tend to select healthy food, not junk food.  There is a careful selection of exercises to strengthen specific muscles, not just a random physical activities.  How much more important are our minds and our spiritual hearts.
    Going forward I am going to be more conscience of the music I ingest.  I will continue to enjoy a wide variety of music, in the same way that I enjoy eating chocolate mousse… a treat to enjoy but not part of every meal.  Likewise, while it’s important to engage in whole body exercise, there is a need to target specific muscles, to address weakness and build strength.  What’s the mix between broad playlists (potentially whole body workouts) and specific playlists which target needed areas?  I don’t know.  I suspect it will vary person to person, and depend on what season of life one is in, it is something that will have to be discovered, and as soon as you think you know the balance, it will be time to change again.  Seasons of discovery, seasons to consolidation. Today I am in a season of consolidation, where there is a need for more focus, and less variety. I find myself wondering what other things should be paired down.

  • Libby home with the Lord now

    Early this morning Libby went home to be with the Lord.  As in life, she was tenacious in her passing.  It was peaceful, but she fought to stay with us as long as she could.  We already miss her terribly, but are so glad that the suffering is done and that she will never have to cry again, or feel terrible pain.  For the last day U2’s “40” has been running through my head… though the phrase “how long” which isn’t from Psalm 40 is what I was fixated on.  This morning I read the full Psalm which both comforted me and intensified my grief.

    I waited patiently for the LORD;
    he turned to me and heard my cry.
    He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
    out of the mud and mire;
    he set my feet on a rock
    and gave me a firm place to stand.
    He put a new song in my mouth,
    a hymn of praise to our God.
    Many will see and fear the LORD
    and put their trust in him.
    Blessed is the one
    who trusts in the LORD,
    who does not look to the proud,
    to those who turn aside to false gods.
    Many, LORD my God,
    are the wonders you have done,
    the things you planned for us.
    None can compare with you;
    were I to speak and tell of your deeds,
    they would be too many to declare.
    Sacrifice and offering you did not desire—
    but my ears you have opened—
    burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require.
    Then I said, “Here I am, I have come—
    it is written about me in the scroll.
    I desire to do your will, my God;
    your law is within my heart.”
    proclaim your saving acts in the great assembly;
    I do not seal my lips, LORD, as you know.
    I do not hide your righteousness in my heart;
    I speak of your faithfulness and your saving help.
    I do not conceal your love and your faithfulness
    from the great assembly.
    o not withhold your mercy from me, LORD;
    may your love and faithfulness always protect me.
    For troubles without number surround me;
    my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see.
    They are more than the hairs of my head,
    and my heart fails within me.
    Be pleased to save me, LORD;
    come quickly, LORD, to help me.
    May all who want to take my life
    be put to shame and confusion;
    may all who desire my ruin
    be turned back in disgrace.
    May those who say to me, “Aha! Aha!”
    be appalled at their own shame.
    But may all who seek you
    rejoice and be glad in you;
    may those who long for your saving help always say,
    “The LORD is great!”
    But as for me, I am poor and needy;
    may the Lord think of me.
    You are my help and my deliverer;
    you are my God, do not delay.

    Psalm 40