I haven't been blogging much in recent days due, in part, to the busy-ness of my summertime schedule which has included travel (Canada), painting (with Coach Dave), the mountains of Colorado (Buena Vista), and prepping for school in the fall. But the major reason is that, quite honestly, I just feel pretty tapped out in many ways. The only reading I've enjoyed in recent days is pure pleasure reading. . . the last two Harry Potter books which I blitzed through after my sons recommended them so highly. Everything else feels like a re-hash of what I've already explored. And I am lacking the passion to prove the previous sentence untrue. I have tweaked my two classes at school with some new missional resources which I will comment on later but I have no idea if they will take with my kids at school. We'll see. I am very eager to unpack the new Missio Dei curriculum which my contact at ACSI just emailed is set to be released in the next week or so. This is the curriculum which I helped research in 2006-2007. So that will be a nice kick in the pants when I see that next week. But otherwise, I'm feeling just a sense of malaise probably due to a number of life situations. If I had to title this "chapter" in my life, I would probably call it "The Middle Age Doldrums".
In the midst of it all, I am facing some relationship challenges with friends and family. I gotta say that sometimes life just sucks. . . there is no other way to put it. . . when one feels trapped in choices that feel profoundly lose-lose in the results. In light of the above, the one question which has been posed to me in recent days which I have found somewhat challenging is a self-reflective question tracing who I am today back to the basic messages I internalized as fact from my family-of-origin. This was not posed as a question of "blame" so much as a question of "what kinds of information about myself and the world around us did I accept as fact from my earliest days which may not be fact at all" but are still governing my feelings and responses? This is a meditative question which I am somewhat curious to explore.
My initial take on this ponder is a phrase I've blogged on before: "If it's to be, it's up to me", a significant lie which I have nevertheless lived as a default philosophy of life for many years. In other words, if I don't continually stare this one down, I live it out without even knowing it. No matter that this obviously denies any sense of God's presence, direction, and inspiration in my life, I have still lived this without question or distraction. Beyond this message which I internalized for whatever reasons, I am not quite sure what other messages I have lived. But it may be helpful and fun to explore this in the days ahead. Who knows. . . maybe getting to the bottom of this question may help lift the sense of doldrums that presently describes my story.
I appreciate hearing where your at Jim, even if it's in the doldrums. With you and for you in it.
Posted by: Ryan | July 29, 2009 at 03:26 PM