How to Do Shameless?

My days are numbered. All of them.

My life will end, of course. God knows when. My life in construction is going to end, probably sooner than later my doctor says. I had parts replaced last year in hopes of prolonging my construction career, but now I have more issues that will require more surgeries than I can pay for or take time off to recover from. I might get by with "light duty" for a while if nothing goes wrong...goes wrong...goes wrong....

So, now I'm backed into a corner. I need another income stream, if nothing else as a back up, because I can't shake this eating and drinking habit I have. And yeah, I like my internet connection and a roof over my head, though I'd forgo the roof before the internet if I wasn't married, I think.

I've been writing for a long time. I've been putting out a lot of other media stuff for a long time. All for free, and that was always fine with me, I was doing fine in construction. Other people have monetized my stuff but I've always resisted doing that, even when people told me I should because it was wildly popular. I had the same problem with monetizing my media production that I have with marketing my construction work: I hate self-promotion.

With my construction business, I've had the luxury of never having to advertise, sell, schmooze, cold call, or do marketing. I've worked for 33 years with an unlisted phone number and never had to solicit a job. I have always been referred by word of mouth and I was "sold" when I walked onto the project. My podcasts, blog, and writing have all gone viral or have been promoted by other people so I never had to "put myself out there".  And I've never had to wonder what any of this is really worth to anyone.

So I'm jumping into the cold water of turning what I love to do into something of a business. I know very well what might happen when a passion and an avocation becomes a "job". But I also know I've had a "job" for 33 years that I still love to show up and do, even when some of the things I have to do aren't snazzy and challenging anymore.

I'm also gagging down the reality that I'm going to have to put my stuff out there, tell people who have never heard of me about it, and put a dollar sign on it.  I have no clue how to go about it without feeling sleazy. But I'm going to give it a try, at least for a while, to see if I can figure it out.

Here's what's up with my new writing venture.

I've self-published another book. I'm actually surprised how well-received "Fire from Ashes" has been. I appreciate Fr. Joseph dragging me out of my seclusion to work on the book with him. That gave me a kick start to finish "Lord of the Hunt and Other Tales of Grace" which has been sitting on my desk for over ten years. It was actually published back in 1991 but went out of print.  My "claim to fame" is that it got rejected by Multnomah Press who, at the time was publishing Max Lucado. They said they couldn't publish it because "it was similar to Max's work". I still have that rejection letter framed. The publisher who went with it said it was "Max Lucado with a dark side".  Twenty five years ago with a 38 year old's aspiring "Christian" writer's ego that made me very happy. Still does, in a way. Max kept writing and I built walls to feed six kids and wrote just to write.

A few years ago I got the rights back. I have revised, added/subtracted and illustrated it for the new edition. It is a Christian book, not an "Orthodox" book, meaning there is no Ortho-apologetical agenda in its pages. If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you have read a few of the stories in it. I am working on a marketing plan that will focus first on folks in recovery of some kind. (In a sense we're ALL in recovery, but just not as acutely aware of it as others are).

I have a new website called Word and Line  This is my "writing/illustration/speaking" business website.  It is serious self-promotion. You can view my "stuff", buy my books, and hire me to write, draw or speak. I will also be posting my blog stuff over there once I get settled into a plan. I'll cross post relevant stuff. I don't know how that is going to go, but I have to start somewhere.

So I hope you will pass this stuff on if you know of anyone who might be remotely interested in what I have to say or in my skill-set or services.  Word of mouth, bay-beee... marketing pros say that's where it's at.

And of course, they're right.

Thanks, all.....

One Shade of Gray

For the last four or five years I've walked in a dark grey fog. It was not the deep, black hole I had been spiraling into since my teen years that Prozac lifted me out of twenty years ago. It has been more an obscuring, dank, and oppressive mist that had no substance enough to grasp on to and wrestle with.  I know the difference between despondency and despair.  Joylessness is not suicidal, it is just, well, joyless with glimpses of diffused light out of the corner of your eye.

I knew my way well enough around my landscape: church, family, children, work, public image, to sleepwalk for the most part without falling off the edge, hitting the brick wall or doing irreparable damage to myself or others (that I know of). I lived by the braille of non-debilitating depression: memory, habit and behind the protection of a well rehearsed and finely crafted facade.

Self-medication, avoidance, abbreviated encounters, non-engagement, silence, superficial connections, false conversations, diversionary quips, misleading humor, inscrutability, all are the commerce of despondency. They became my repertoire for muddling through a day, and the next day and the next years. The consequences of choosing one over the other were irrelevant, they all worked for muddling. It drives one to desire death but does not provide the guts to die.

So the fog is slowly dissipating these days. The light breaks through, I see the outline of the sun through the heavy mist. In the shadows cast I see the prints of footsteps past and, though they are few, they are going, for the most part, in one direction.

These days, avoidance is not the first and visceral reaction but a calculated one. There is substance and purpose to conversations and encounters when chosen. Oblivion is not the preferred state, though it is still medicinal after purposefully entering the arena.

It is good to see the contours of life emerging from the murky shadows once again.

On Turning 62

62 is the "18" of late life. At 18 you aren't 21 yet when all the REALLY big privileges kick in, but there were some new horizons. At 18 I could vote, buy cigarettes and Playboy at Circle K, but not beer, and adults regarded me as one of them, kind of. At 62, I could retire and start cashing in retirement accounts penalty free (if I had any...), eat off the senior menus at most restaurants, but 65 is still the magic age. And, kids call me "sir".

In between 18 and 62, on the round numbered birthdays, 30, 40, 50, there is something that shifts existentially and the demons we faced in the previous decade tag out and new ones enter the arena of the coming years. Over the years our aspirations slowly align more with our fragile mortality and true gifts. The tsunami of regrets begin pounding our shore from our ill conceived or unintentional seismic shifts in life from the distant past. Death looms ever larger, the abyss of darkness casts a light into the deep caverns of our soul and reveals all the unthinkable, unchangeable, inevitable, and unspeakable things we were able to avoid and ignore because of the reality-debilitating delusions of youth. If we continue much past 40 to cling to youthfulness and immortality we will be a caricature badly drawn, and fools by fifty.

Looking back at 30, 40, 50, and in the early years of 60-something, I can say without pride that I have fought the good fight, I have kept my faith. The "good fight" was not always fair, nor was it always pretty. I was knocked down, punch drunk, hit below the belt, sucker punched a few times and laid on the mat for a nine count a few times. I still have a few rounds to go. At this point in life, I have no illusions that the fight becomes easier. If anything it has gotten harder because I am nearly exhausted. The early rounds were full of fresh strength and confidence. These final rounds are about endurance and just plain being still standing when the bell rings. 

"Faith" is now more like real faith than a crafted, reasoned resignation to its metaphysical, philosophical, and emotional alternatives. I am content to believe "just because" rather than "believe because". I don't need to justify my heart's compass to anyone.  There is a fine line between a fool and a saint. I've been a fool for things far less worthy than sainthood and sacrificed more for my selfishness and ego than for God. I've been off the path, but my compass still points me to the way I've chosen to walk.

My children and grandchildren (most of them) will be at our house for my birthday tonight. We spent the earlier part of this week with some of the others on a family vacation. All of them will all be here in spirit. I know I am very blessed to love and be loved by my children, step-children, and grandchildren. All of them have reasons to despise me if they were so inclined, so I know their love and respect is a gift.

This morning as I fixed my coffee and peanut butter toast in the house I raised my children in, that I share with my beloved as our years spin out their final pages, I was overwhelmed with a sense of contentment with my life.

I've read this Psalm for over 40 years. I have heard it with the hearing of the ear, today I have heard it with my heart.

When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands,
You will be happy and it will be well with you.
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house,
Your children like olive plants around your table.
Behold, for thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD.…
Psalm 128:3,4

62 Years

My Mom called me every day last week to ask if she had paid me for their cell phone for the year. She repeats the same thing a dozen times in a conversation now. She remembers her childhood and some things about the past but her short term memory is virtually gone. My Dad is getting tired, I can tell. He says he'd rather have it this way than the tables turned and he be the one in need of care. She is getting more and more frail and unsteady. She fell twice in the past couple weeks. As many times as we've suggested moving into a one story house or something closer to us, I know they will stay in the three story until my Mom falls and breaks something and will have to be put in a nursing home.

Sixty three years they've been married. I know all the years have not been a joy for either of them. I remember when I was in high school they had separate single beds in their bedroom. Of course we weren't that far removed from married people sleeping in separate beds like in "Ozzie and Harriet" and "Father Knows Best" in the 60's and so it didn't really raise a red flag, but now I know it was one. I remember my Mom sniping at my Dad at supper then. She always did that, but I recall a particularly despondent look on my Dad's face in those days. My Mom told me a few years ago that there were a few times she had her bags packed while Dad was at work but had them unpacked by the time he got home from work. She was glad she stuck it out. Now that she has dementia she has mellowed out and she is happy. I told my Dad he's lucky she's not like some other old people I know who turned mean. I think he's glad that she, and he, stuck it out too.  I look at them and my Mom's words ring in my ears and sometimes I get a twinge of "what if" about my former marriage.  But I did what I did and I worked at this one, though I have to say the Wifey has never given me a reason or excuse to look elsewhere.  We're not too many years from this. God knows who will be taking care of whom. But it is enough to know that we'll be taking care of each other.

It has been about 8 months since I quit my school job and started back in construction. I'm definitely feeling 62. I hurt my back last week but had three critical path jobs so I gutted it out. That's nothing new, I've done it lots of times before, but I know for sure I'm not 35 any more. I don't recover from heat, injuries and fatigue as fast as I used to. As many "tricks of the trades" I know, there are no tricks that make framing 14 foot walls when you can't bend over and pick up a level easy.

I've done a lot of things to make money over the past 46 years. I'm perfectly capable of "working with my brain" and that was what I always thought I'd do for the long haul, but I keep coming back to working with my hands. Of course, working with your hands as a craftsman takes "brains", but the creativity and tangibility of construction, whether it is painting, finish carpentry or just carrying heavy stuff from here to there, has a soul-satisfaction to it that I couldn't quite find in an Excel spreadsheet or even crafting a concise and clear email. When I was working for the school I did construction on the side to keep my sanity. I feel blessed that I can flip that and do construction full time and craft sentences as an avocation. As much as I love to write and had fun collaborating with Fr. Joseph on "Fire from Ashes"  and re-editing and getting "Lord of the Hunt and Other Tales of Grace" ready for publication (soon), I think if it were my full time "job" and sole source of income I'd come to despise it. All in all, Solomon was right: "The sleep of a working man is sweet." I go to bed at 9pm mostly now.

We put our last dog down today.  Maggie died on Thanksgiving morning and Bella died a couple months ago. Carlos has been going downhill over the past few months. He was blind, deaf, had a tumor, and his back legs were crippled. We decided to put him to sleep before he just completely broke down. He knew something was amiss when we took him for a ride to the vet. We've always stayed with our dogs when we put them to sleep. It's hard, but it is part of the bond that will be fulfilled in heaven in the eschaton.

 Our grandbaby is a year old already. Sorry, new parents... all the "cute" has been sucked out of the universe now. 

 The Grandbaby is "multi-racial"... Our daughter is 1/4 Chinese and the baby's father is African-American. When I forewarned my Dad about our daughter's boyfriend's race before we all went to visit them. He said, "She can do better than that".  I had to remind him that he married my Mom at a time when "Yellow" was a plague and everyone who was east of California was a "Jap". When my Dad introduced my Mom to his parents, my Grandma looked at my Mom, then at my Dad and said, "We sent you over there to kill them, not marry them." So he came by his racism honestly. I was the first grandchild and, as the story goes, the first grand child makes everything OK.  This is my Dad with his first half-black great-grand baby.

All is right with the universe.

Book is Published

A little over a year ago Fr. Joseph Huneycutt and I met in person for the first time and after spending a weekend together decided to collaborate on a book about "perpetual repentance", what to do when we've been a dog and eaten our own vomit after "tasting the heavenly gift". We submitted our manuscript along with my illustrations and it was accepted.  A couple days ago we received an email from Conciliar Press that it is now available HERE

AN EXCERPT:

Sinning is like dating our exes.

Temptation is my “Little Black Book”.  It is a list of the phone numbers (OK… and email addresses and Facebook profiles) of old friends or lovers that I broke up with long ago but still hold a soft place in my heart.  They are people I chose once and then chose to give up and throw out of my life.  I know I ditched them for a reason; they were bad for me in some way. The problem is, I don’t know why I still hang on to their number and call them up when I need what they once gave me that I once enjoyed. 

St. Peter, quoting the Proverbs, says going back to my old “friends” is like a dog that returns to its vomit. (2 Peter 2:22)  That is probably one of the most unappetizing images in scripture. But it is exactly what I do when I go back and eat what I spit out and threw up in my “conversion”.   

The problem with all of us is, if sin really looked and tasted like vomit, the choice would be easy.   

So, I despise self-promotion, but I also have a blog, podcasts and a FB account, and have written a couple of books, so I can't fake not enjoying some sense of notoriety. The royalties on this will buy me a couple of nice dinners out with my wife so it's not about the money. I sincerely hope it points some people toward the mercy of God shining, even dimly, in their darkest place.

New Bike

Craigslist motorcycles is like shopping porn. I found a newer model of the same bike I had but with only 1800 miles on it. Basically, I sold my old bike with unknown miles and a 25 year old motor for about what I paid for the new one. I rode it stock for a couple months then got "mod fever" again. I've always liked WWII military bikes. Steve McQueen jumping barbed wire fences on a Triumph T-60 trying to elude the Nazis in "The Great Escape" was the quintessential cool when I was twelve.



So, with a couple cans of Rustoleum spray paint, a 1973 "Water Buffalo" fender that I chopped, a couple pieces of copper tubing for struts, an ammo can, a vintage European front license plate from Ebay, and a paratrooper pack, for under a hundred bucks and a few afternoons, I have my "McQueen Cool" bike 50 years later.

God's Will for My Life: Dismount

I continue to think about the topic of "God's will for my life".

I often wonder how many more things I've done will be, in retrospect the further I get away from them, Quixotian.

The mix of ego, delusion, zealous idealism, ignorance, and lack of wisdom become more and more evident as I see my life from a distance. But then, I also see glimpses of courage, righteous fury, justice and mercy, even though tainted by a darkened heart, an unclear eye, and an undefined target. 

For all the ferocity of the battles I've engaged, I don't know now that many were worth waging.  My comfort is "God knows" and "all things work together for good to those that love the Lord".

I've given up on marching into hell for self-defined and church defined "heavenly causes".

I've come to the conclusion that most things that engage the passions of modern man are distractions from the real warfare. We ride a high horse and joust with the wind, accomplishing nothing in the end but a feeling we've made a mark.  But the wind bears no scars of battle, only we do.

The true battle is is in my own heart toward the person I am face to face with in the present moment. I cast a cynical eye on causes and injustices.  I don't care about the "big picture" because politics and policy of countries and churches are still run by people who can even crucify God with their monied influences if they so choose.
  
Sometimes, I'm afraid I have become the compromised "Father" of "Father and Son"  that I despised in 1970.

And I'm also afraid, in my dismount, I've engaged a far more real and serious and dangerous war.